


Love Never Dies

by Karinshastha



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:15:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 58,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29475327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karinshastha/pseuds/Karinshastha
Summary: After defeating hostile raiders and escaping a near-fatal encounter with walkers, Clementine and AJ are finally able to rest through a quiet fall at their school-turned-home with their newfound group of friends. Yet, as winter approaches, the group's ties are put to the test once more: their food supply runs low, their hunting bows find no prey, and their scavenging missions far afield are met with walkers and bandits at every turn. To make matters worse, Violet and AJ start competing for Clementine's love with disastrous consequences, leaving the school in ruins and the group without shelter as they flee from mutated walkers who have learned to withstand fire. Violet and AJ go all out to defend Clementine, forcing her to choose between them - a choice that could turn out to be deadly. Will she be able to pick up the pieces and go home?
Relationships: Clementine & Violet (Walking Dead: Done Running)
Kudos: 8





	1. AJ

Clem says it’s January which makes it a new year, but to me it’s just the same old winter that turns her leg stump into a block of ice and my coat into a second layer under my blankets so she can hog our little oil lamp at night. When morning comes, I watch Louis and Aasim head out into the snow and trees to look through “nature’s refrigerator” for something to eat. That’s what Clem calls the woods since she doesn’t get to see them much these days. There aren’t many animals left ‘cause they’re all hidden inside their nests and holes and trees. It takes a lot of work to get them out of their winter beds, but at least we don’t have to chase them after that since they’re so sleepy. I think I’d like it better if I could wear myself out hunting during the day instead of sitting around at night waiting until I’m tired enough to fall asleep. It would keep my mind busy, too. I don’t know why, but I’ve been getting these really weird questions popping up in my head. I don’t know how much longer I can take it before one of my thought bubbles comes out of my mouth and bursts.

“Clem,” I say.

“Yeah, AJ?” she says.

“What was my mom like?”

Clem looks like she wants to sit up from her stack of pillows, but she makes that face with her teeth showing like she does whenever something isn’t gonna happen. She can’t get up, so I gotta watch the door for her. I take my gun out and spin the chambers to show her that I can protect her.

“How many you got left?” she says.

“Two. If a couple of walkers get in here, I’ll pop them both in the head. Boom, boom.”

“Good.”

She hasn’t worn her baseball hat in a long time. I keep it on the desk to remind us of what we’ve been through so we don’t forget. Sometimes Clem takes out her purple hair band and lies down on her hair like it’s another pillow. I keep telling her that a walker’s gonna grab it and yank her off the bed but she doesn’t listen. She’s been acting kinda weird lately.

“Your mom was brave,” she says, “just like you. You were born in the middle of a winter almost as…” Clem starts breathing hard. “…almost as cold as this one.”

“I know you can’t move fast,” I say. “I won’t let them get to you.”

Clem breathes in real deep, then lets it out nice and slow. That’s what she taught me to do so fear doesn’t take us over.

“That’s what I said to Rebecca,” she says. “Your mom. She gave birth to you right in the middle of a walker attack. I helped the others keep them from getting past the gates.”

“Really?” I say. I get up off the floor and sit next to her on the bed. “Did my mom sit there and shoot at them while I was being born?”

“No, silly. We dropped them off a deck with an old cannon and a bunch of telescopes.”

“What are those?”

“Well, a cannon shoots big iron balls. Nobody uses those anymore. And telescopes let you see far away places.”

“Maybe we should get one of those for the walls.”

“If we come across one,” she says, “you can help us drag it back here.”

“It sure would help when I’m on watch with Willy,” I say. “He doesn’t even pay attention half the time ‘cause he’s grabbing at his pants so much.”

Clem lifts her hand and pretends to take my nose between her fingers. She knows I’m too old to be fooled by that stuff.

“You look just like your dad,” she says.

“What did he look like?” I say.

“He was handsome, just like you.” That makes me smile even though I don’t really know whether it’s true. “His hair was like yours, only shorter. And he wore glasses.”

“What are those?”

“They help your eyes see better.”

“He sounds really smart.”

“He was,” says Clem. “And his son is just like him. That’s how you know not to—”

“That’s cheating,” I say.

I have to frown at her to show her that I mean business. She can’t say all these nice things just to tell me what not to do. She has to mean what she says if she wants me to believe her.

“Since when is telling the truth cheating?” she says.

“Okay, so tell me what I looked like when I was being born. And no cheating.”

Clem takes a deep breath in and lets out a sigh.

“Your body was all blue when you came out,” she says. “You weren’t breathing. Everyone thought you were dead, but then you coughed and started crying. You were tough, even as a baby.”

“Yeah,” I say, “that’s me. I’m strong.”

“So what’s on your mind?” says Clem. “This is the first time you’ve ever wanted to talk about this.”

Her left pant leg is folded over her stump and pinned into place. It’s the first thing I see every time I walk into the room. I don’t know why.

“I’ve been doing a whole lot of thinking while you’ve been in bed,” I say. “I wanna be smart like you. Smarter, so the walkers can’t get you even if you can’t get away from them. I just keep thinking about the barn—Clem, if I had listened to you, you wouldn’t be here right now. You’d be one of those monsters or worse. You always tell me I’m supposed to listen to you, and sometimes you make mistakes, but I don’t understand why you’d tell me to do something that takes us away from each other.”

Clem closes her eyes.

“I was wrong,” she says. “You made a tough decision for me when I couldn’t think clearly. I’m not perfect. Nobody is.”

“You don’t need to be perfect, Clem,” I say. “You just need to be…you. But how do I know when to listen to you from now on? What if you say something like that when you’re not bitten? What if a walker’s coming at you and you tell me to do something crazy and you’re missing half your leg so you can’t escape with me?”

“Not half my leg. Just my foot. And we’ll figure out a better way for me to get around so you don’t have to worry so much.”

“I know! We can put some wheels on a chair. I saw one of those in a junkyard once.”

“Good thinking, but what happens if we get to a hill or a river or some place where the ground is all bumpy?”

“You’re right,” I say. “I guess I didn’t think about that.”

“You just need to think smarter,” says Clem.

“Maybe…maybe we don’t need to get something different. Maybe we just need to get something better than wood, like metal, that doesn’t get wet and break when you need to run.”

“Now you’re thinking.”

“And maybe some glasses so you can see better. And a telescope.”

“That’s a lot of stuff to carry around. Let’s just start with a metal leg for now. When I can get out of bed and walk around without getting tired from the cold, that is. Until then, I need you to think smart for me. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Does that mean I don’t have to listen to you anymore?”

“You still have to listen to me, goofball.”

“It’s Alvin Junior.”

“If I call you Alvin Junior, that means you’re in trouble.”

“So what if I call you Clementine?”

“Then I’ll know something’s up.”

I look at Clem kinda weird. She scrunches up her eyes at me.

“Clementine,” I say.

She starts tickling me all over the place. That always makes me laugh, especially when she gets me right under my shoulders and on my sides. I have to get off the bed to get her to stop.

“I’m gonna go on patrol,” I tell her.

“Just be careful,” she says. “Don’t use those bullets unless you—”

“I know, Clem. Me and Willy have a bunch of rocks up in the lookout tower to dis…destruct…”

“Distract any walkers you see. That’s good, but we have to make sure they don’t come back.”

I think there’s something in my eyes. I gotta wipe them on my coat sleeve to make sure Clem doesn’t see them and get worried about me. I’ve been having strange dreams lately. Clem’s in them. And she’s a walker. When I wake up, I can’t think straight for the rest of the day.

“Where’s my hug?” she says.

I put my face into her jacket. Sometimes when she sleeps in Violet’s room she leaves her jacket on the bed. I use it as a pillow so it smells like her when I’m trying to fall sleep.

“I’ve been wondering something,” I say.

“What’s up?”

“Why do you and Violet spend so much time together? You always put your faces real close and I can’t figure out why.”

“Oh, that.”

Clem looks up at the ceiling, then at the walls, then down at the chair beside our bed where the little oil lamp is burning. Maybe she’s thinking about what Violet would say if she were here. Violet doesn’t talk a lot, but when she does, she uses a lot of swears.

“Well,” says Clem, “it’s how we talk to each other.”

“How can you talk to each other if you don’t say anything?”

“We use the power of our minds. Come here and I’ll show you. Put your forehead up against mine.”

I climb up onto the bed and kneel so my head can reach Clem’s. Our eyes are real close. Hers are light brown and as big as the moon. She squints at me.

“What am I thinking about…right…now?” she says.

Out of the corners of my eyes, I see Clem put her hands out at her sides the way she does when she’s gonna…

“You’re gonna tickle me,” I say.

I make sure to get away from her so she can’t do it. I know I’m right because her fingers look like claws. That’s how she gets you.

“AJ!” she says. “How did you know?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I could just tell.”

“Exactly. That’s how Violet and I do it.”

“Really?”

“You absolutely read my mind.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I did. So that’s how you know so much about Violet, like when she’s gonna come in here and ask you a bunch of questions and I have to go somewhere else for a while. I think I’m gonna go on patrol and try out my powers.”

“Just be careful,” says Clem. “Don’t try to read any of the walkers’ minds. You already know what they’re thinking.”

“That they’re gonna bite me?”

“No, they’re not thinking about anything at all. That’s why they need your brains. Don’t let them have them.”

“I won’t,” I say. “I think maybe I’ll talk to Willy first.”

When I get out into the courtyard, there aren’t any walkers or people anywhere, just Willy up on top of the walls on lookout duty. I climb up the ladder to see whether anything is happening out in the woods.

“Hey, Willy,” I say.

“Hey, kid,” he says.

“Who are you calling a kid? You know my name. And you’re not even that much older than me.”

“Yeah, but you look like a kid. Clementine isn’t that old, either, but you still called her ‘mom’ in your sleep last night.”

“Did not.”

“Did so!”

“How do you even know?” I say. “Have you been spying on us? I’m gonna get mad if you have.”

“I go on patrol at night to make sure no walkers get into the school.  Duh .”

“I guess that makes sense. I bet I can read your mind.”

“No way.”

“Clem showed me how. She does it with Violet all the time. I bet I can do it, too.”

“My dad used to have these science magazines that talked about using mind control devices and android housekeepers that would figure out what needed to be cleaned, but nobody can read someone else’s mind.”

“Oh, yeah?” I say. “I’ll prove it. Put your forehead against mine.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Just do it. Clem showed me. Now I’m gonna show you.”

We put our heads together. His skin feels like a bunch of fish swimming around in a bucket. And he keeps scratching himself.

“You gotta stay still for this to work,” I tell him.

I’m not getting anything like I did with Clem, so I put my fingers up against both sides of my head and close my eyes. Willy makes a noise like he’s grabbing at something. I remember him talking about why he got sent here. I open my eyes.

“I got it,” I say.

“What am I thinking about?” he says.

“You’re thinking about that thing you do. Chronic mas…master—”

“Holy shit,” says Willy.

“Swear,” I say.

“Hey, Aasim!” Willy shouts. Aasim is down on the ground carrying the firewood we use to keep our bedrooms warm. “This kid is psychic!”

“Why don’t you yell a little louder?” says Aasim. “I don’t think the walkers at the train station heard you.”

“Told you I could,” I say.

“You have to teach me how to do that,” Willy says.

He looks really excited. His eyes are all big and snot’s coming out of his nose like it does whenever he’s thinking about making bombs, which is always.

“Okay,” I say, “but first you gotta do something for me.”

“Like what?”

“Ask Louis to teach me how to use his bow.”

“That bow’s bigger than you are.”

“You wanna learn how to read minds or not?”

“Yeah. I’ll go ask him. Stay here on lookout for me.”

It doesn’t take long for Willy to get back here. I don’t think he even went to find Louis.

“He says you’re not big enough to use it,” Willy says.

“Are you sure?” I say. “You didn’t even go to his room.”

“Yeah, ‘cause he wasn’t there. He was talking to your  mom .”

“Shut up.”

“You can ask Clementine if you don’t believe me.”

“Whatever,” I say. “There aren’t even any walkers out in the woods. What’s the point of lookout if there’s nothing to look out for? I’m gonna go use my mind-reading powers on someone else.”

I climb down the ladder. Willy stares down at me.

“Are you still gonna teach me?” he says.

“Maybe later,” I say. “I got things to do.”

It’s cold out here. I should be more like the animals and look for a place to get warm. I walk back to the main building and spot Violet in her jacket and long-sleeved shirt over in the graveyard. She’s probably talking to Brody again. She feels bad because she wasn’t nice to Brody until Brody was dead. Since I know so much about what she’s thinking already, I bet I can read her mind and figure out whether Violet had a sister before she came here and that’s why she spends so much time with Clem. Except this time I’m gonna put my head up to Violet’s legs and see if maybe they can tell me how to make a real leg grow back so Clem doesn’t have to use a fake one anymore. I know that sounds weird, but Clem is pretty smart, and I wanna show her that I’m just as smart as she is.


	2. AJ

Violet blows open the door to our bedroom holding AJ by his pint-sized coat arm. He must have done something to piss her off. Wouldn’t be the first time.

“Clem,” says AJ. “Violet called me a butt-munch.”

“Well,” I say, “ are you a butt-munch?”

“ Clem ,” he whines.

“I was just about to head off to reinforce the northern walls with some of that plywood we found out past the train station,” Violet says. “I thought maybe Rosie was sniffing me, but when I turned around, AJ was standing there with his face in my ass.”

I frown at AJ. There’s no smile hidden behind my frown, either. His eyes go wide. He knows I’m serious about not bothering Violet. I don’t need him biting her like he did Ruby.

“What in the world has gotten into you, AJ?” I say.

“Nothing,” he says. “You showed me how you use your mind-reading powers, so I went and tried them out. I figured out what Willy was thinking—that was easy. Aasim didn’t wanna play ‘cause he was busy collecting firewood. I saw Violet over by the graveyard and thought she wouldn’t mind if I asked her legs how they grow so tall. If I knew that, I could help yours grow back and you wouldn’t have to wear a wooden leg.”

“Except I  do mind,” says Violet. “Most days I can’t bring myself to talk to Brody. But today was different. I was gonna lay it all out there and ask her to forgive me. AJ came up and ruined the mood. Fuck.”

“Swear,” says AJ.

“AJ,” I say with a sigh. “We’ve talked about this before.”

“Why does she get to swear and I don’t? I do a lot of the same adult stuff that she does. Lookout, patrolling, building up the walls…”

“You don’t see me smashing my face into people’s asses,” says Violet.

“No, but you do it to Clem’s face,” says AJ.

Violet frowns at me, which for her means she’s pretty pissed off.

“You told him about that?” she says.

“He asked me,” I say. “I keep telling you to make sure he’s not around, but it seems like you’ve been forgetting lately.”

“And you guys do it twenty times a day,” says AJ.

“AJ, shush,” I say. Violet’s eyes are glued to the floor. “I told him it’s how we talk without using words.”

“Yeah,” says Violet. “That’s what it is. And you wanted to ‘talk’ to my legs. Shit. I keep forgetting you’re six years old.”

“Didn’t you ever play with any other kids when you were younger?” AJ says.

“No,” says Violet. “That’s why I was sent here. At least some of the other people here got to play with kids their age who eventually went and told their moms and dads how fucked up they are.”

“Messed up,” I say.

“Right,” says Violet. “Messed up.”

There’s a soft knock on the door followed by a face I don’t usually see in here: Omar. He doesn’t even wait for me to invite him in.

“Hey, Clem,” he says. “Got a minute?”

“I guess I do now,” I say. “What’s up?”

“We’re low on food,” he says.

“When are we not?” says Violet.

“Yeah, but this time we’re out of everything: rice, beans, jerky, pasta…even the hardtack’s running low and I don’t know where to look for more flour. All the canned stuff in the basement is so far beyond its expiration date that it would probably make us sick and empty our stomachs even worse than they already are. Normally I’d have time to do some digging, but Louis and Aasim just came back from two hours of hunting empty-handed.”

Omar jumps up at a sudden, loud knocking on our door frame. Violet frowns at the open door.

“Knock that shit off and get your ass in here, Lou,” she says. “I should have known you’d be waiting for a goddamn introduction.”

Louis walks into our room with a shit-eating grin on his face which, from the sound of it, is all we have left to eat.

“We’ve been through this before,” I say. “We’ll find something to eat. We just have to be willing to go further than we’re used to.”

“That being the case,” says Louis, “I hereby volunteer myself to take a trip outside our home sweet home and go looking in some of the neighborhoods beyond the north end of the woods.”

“That’s like…hours from here,” says Violet. “And I’m pretty sure about a million other people have had the same idea. Clem got lucky finding that food in the train station. We can’t count on stuff like that happening again.”

“That’s the thing,” says Louis. “We don’t have to count on it. I know this community and the people who lived there. They moved on a long time ago but left it perfectly intact. Any walkers that came by looking for brains got blocked by solid steel gates.”

“If you were there, they wouldn’t find shit,” says Violet. “Every single place we’ve been to has been picked clean. If anything or anyone is still left, it’s probably just assholes waiting to rob whoever shows up.”

“Not in Hancock,” says Louis. “I know for a fact that this particular suburban area was full of people with money who fled to their mansions as soon as people started eating each other. They were incredibly secretive about the location of their summer cottages and secured them with state of the art security systems that cost almost as much the houses themselves.”

“Lou, I know you’re trying to help,” says Violet, “but you are completely full of shit.”

“Can you think of any better options?” says Omar. “Because I can’t.”

“Well,  I’m going,” says Louis. “And we have to leave now if we want to be back before the sun sends us to bed with empty stomachs.”

“I’m going, too,” AJ says. “I wanna help.”

“Hold on, AJ,” I say. “You’d be a bigger help to us by patrolling the walls around the school and keeping them intact.”

“Anyone can do that, Clem,” says AJ. “You said I could make the tough decisions, so I’m making them. I’m gonna watch Louis’s back.”

“By yourself?” I say.

“I’m going, too,” says Aasim. “I kinda feel like shit for not bagging anything on this morning’s hunting expedition.”

“All right, AJ,” I say, “then while you’re watching Louis’s back, I’ll be watching yours.”

Violet stares at me like I just told her aliens from one of Willy’s science fiction magazines landed in the courtyard. I can’t tell whether her head’s going to explode or she’s going to kiss me until I can’t breathe. She’s done it before.

“Lou is gonna take us to the perimeter and keep a lookout,” she says. “Me, Clem, and AJ will scavenge while he does. Aasim can stay back here at the school and stand watch for any dumbass animals who get close enough to let him redeem himself.”

“That’s a pretty harsh sentence,” says Aasim. “I think I’d be more useful if I went with you guys, but if that’s the way you want to play it…”

“It is,” says Violet.

“Are we sure about this?” says Louis. “I  am the one who knows where Hancock is after all. I’m also familiar with the layout. And Aasim is our best hunter.”

“Our best hunter didn’t get shit this morning,” says Violet. “And neither did his sidekick.”

“What happens if walkers  do show up?” says Louis.

“They won’t because you’re going to shut the fuck up so they don’t follow the sound of your voice,” says Violet.

“But if they should so happen to find us,” says Louis, “Clem can’t exactly swing her wooden leg at walker heads. She might need to run from something the same way we’ve had to…oh, I don’t know…about a thousand times since she lost it? And aren’t you the one who’s always telling her not to go off and do things?”

“She’ll have plenty of warning because you’re going to see it coming and tell us before it sees us,” says Violet.

“All right,” says Louis. “I see how it is. You run off and play while I hang back and sacrifice myself to the wandering horde. Just like at the train station.”

“I can’t stay holed up here all day every day,” I say. “If we’re going to do this, we have to leave right now.”

“When else?” says Louis.

The walk through the northern woods takes us the better part of the day. We find some bedsheets—no cockroaches, surprisingly clean—in an abandoned shack out in the middle of nowhere. My leg is killing me but I don’t want to say anything about it so Louis doesn’t feel the need to launch into one of his ridiculous speeches to try to cheer us up. Too late: Violet frowns at her own feet as soon as Louis starts talking. I pretend to stumble so I don’t have to listen to the entirely predictable conversation between Violet and Louis about how stupid she thinks he is. Violet guides me to the ground next to a big tree trunk with a worried look on her face.

“I can carry you,” she says. “Piggy back. You’re light enough.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I’m fine. I think I just need to rest for a bit.”

AJ gives me the same worried look that Violet does, then joins Louis in watching a slow-flowing stream not far from where we sit. Louis starts gesturing with his hands. His voice gets louder and louder. AJ looks back at me with a frown.

“I’m ready,” I say and stand up with Violet’s help.

When Louis mentioned that this Hancock place was a “gated community”, I had no idea what he meant: head-high concrete walls with tall, metal, spike-topped bars stretch around a small cluster of houses that look like nobody’s ever lived in them. The paint hasn’t peeled off, the gutters are all intact, and the windows are clear enough that you can see through some of them. The ground on both sides of us is lined with fancy-looking stones that stick up out of the snow.

“Whatever you do, don’t leave the stone path,” says Louis.

“Why not?” says Violet.

“Trust me,” says Louis.

He’s not smiling when he says it. That doesn’t exactly make me want to trust him, but Violet knows better than to take any chances.

“How do we get in?” she says.

“I’ll do it,” says AJ. “I’m small enough.”

Before any of us can tell him not to, he squeezes through a gap in the metal bars and unlocks the latch holding the gate shut.

“Nice one,” says Louis.

He leads us through the half-open gate door, then closes it.

“We need to keep that open,” I say.

“We do?” he says.

“We do if we need to run from walkers,” says Violet.

“Or people,” says AJ.

“People who might only know we’re here if we leave the front gate open,” says Louis.

“Or if they see our footprints in the snow,” says Violet. “We can’t exactly cover those. We have to be able to get out of here fast.”

“All right,” says Louis. He opens the gate again. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“You didn’t,” says Violet. “You just told us not to leave the stone path. Like there’s fucking land mines or some shit around this place.”

“Well, uh, yeah,” says Louis. “That would be weird, wouldn’t it? How about we take this first house? Looks pretty inviting. Just don’t go upstairs. Or downstairs.”

“Why not?” I say.

“Because…all the good stuff is on the ground floor,” says Louis. “Just make sure to be quick and you’ll be fine.”

“I bet the front door’s booby trapped,” says AJ. “We should go in the back.”

“Good thinking,” I say.

“How is that good thinking?” says Louis. “If I were a booby trapper, I’d know people were expecting me to hit the front door, so I’d do the back door instead—whoa, AJ. What is he doing?”

What he’s doing is walking right into the house through the unlocked back door. Violet and I follow him into a kitchen with a spotless, white-tiled floor and dusty wooden cupboards. Beyond that is a living room that nobody’s touched in years: a round-armed sofa sits in front of a big television with a standing lamp next to it. Without even thinking, I set my hand down on the coffee table and leave a Clementine-sized hand print in the thick layer of dust. I wipe the table clean with my jacket sleeve so nobody knows we’ve been here. Shit. We’re tracking mud and snow all over the clean kitchen floor and light brown carpet that’s now dark brown. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a house this clean that I almost feel bad about messing it up. If it weren’t for the thick layer of dust on everything, you might think someone still lived here.

“Holy shit, Clem,” Violet calls from the bathroom. “I found shampoo.”

“It’s probably pretty gross by now,” I say.

AJ follows her into the bathroom with a flashlight. Violet brings him out into the living room’s soft sunlight so he doesn’t waste batteries on runny shampoo from ten years ago.

“Check it out,” says Violet as she holds up a pair of shiny bottles that look like they came straight from a store. “Still wrapped up in plastic, even.”

Violet rips off the plastic with her teeth, twists one of the blue dispenser heads, and pumps it until thick, creamy white stuff comes out into her hand. She rubs it into her hair without even checking to see whether it’s still any good.

“We should totally take this to the river,” she says. “I haven’t washed my hair in forever.”

Something’s not right about this. There’s no way everything stays this perfect for so long all by itself.

“I don’t think that shampoo is going to work on my hair,” I say. “Or AJ’s.”

“Why not?” says Violet. “Oh. Shit. I didn’t even think of that. I guess it’s been so long since I’ve seen actual shampoo that—”

“Relax, Violet,” I say. “Plenty of us can still use it. I’m sure Ruby wouldn’t mind turning that messy campfire of hers into a more manageable brush fire.”

“Yeah,” says Violet. “Her hair does look like shit.”

“What’s shampoo?” says AJ.

“Stuff people use to wash their hair all nice and clean,” I say.

“So why can’t you and me use it? Does it have to be the same color as your hair to work?”

“Something like that,” I say. “You think the fish in the river will be okay with it, Violet?”

“We do our dookies there and the fish don’t seem to mind,” says AJ.

“No we don’t,” says Violet.

AJ’s eyes go wide. His lips come apart like he’s about to say something.

“AJ?” I say in my best motherly tone.

He almost jumps up in place. Maybe I overdid it.

“I’m gonna go check the kitchen,” he says. “Maybe they left some ammo in the drawers or some flour in the cupboards for Omar’s baking stuff.”

He disappears around the corner. Violet’s eyebrows arch upward near her nose. I never did figure out how she does that. It looks cute on her.

“So,” she says, “do you think the fish are…you know…”

“I think we would have tasted it by now,” I say.

“Gross.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m gonna put these bottles in your backpack for now and use them, like, three miles from the fishing shack or some shit.”

“Sounds good.”

“Maybe you could come, too,” she says.

She gets real close to me. Her lips are on my neck. I don’t mind—I really, really don’t mind—but I need to keep my eyes open just in case something jumps us.

“Just you and me,” she says. “I could help you figure out where that shampoo works best. And after that, you could help me find a place for those bedsheets.”

She slides her hand down between my shirt and jeans and holds her fingers in place under my waistband. Any other time and place, I wouldn’t let my waistband stop her. AJ isn’t looking for supplies very hard in the neighboring kitchen. He’s staring at me with a frown.

“We need to keep looking,” I say.

My cheeks flush with heat as I turn around and set my backpack on the floor. Violet sets the shampoo bottles on top of the bedsheets we found in that shack. It’ll be nice to have clean bedding just so long as Willy doesn’t wander into our room when we’re not there and decide to “requisition” them for bombs or traps like the last bunch of hand towels we found. They sure did clean up what was left of those walkers he blew up.

“I’ll tell AJ to do his business by a tree or in the bushes from now on,” I say. I zip my backpack shut. “Just like bears do.”

“Are there even any bears left?” says Violet. “One of those would feed us for weeks.”

“I don’t know. Maybe when we’re done here we could go look for some mama bears in their dens.”

“Yeah, no thanks. I think I’ll stick to rabbits for now.”

“Clem,” says AJ from the kitchen. “I found something.”

Violet and I join him next to the refrigerator. He’s holding a tray of ice cubes. Actual, frozen ice cubes.

“I found these in the little box on top of the big box,” he says. “Man, it’s cold in there.”

I stick my hand inside the freezer: sure enough, it’s frosty. I stick my head inside but don’t hear any buzzing like mom and dad’s fridge did.

“Where in the world would they be getting electricity from?” I say.

“Beats me,” says Violet. She checks the fridge—nothing. “It’s not like they even need this with all that snow outside.”

AJ pulls out his gun.

“Somebody’s here,” he says. He looks around his feet. “Check the floor for trap doors.”

To my surprise, Violet goes out into the living room and lifts up the four corners of the rug underneath the sofa and coffee table.

“See?” says Violet. “No trap doors.”

“You really think someone would hide under the floor when they live in a house that looks like this?” I say to AJ.

“You said  they , Clem,” says AJ. “Where would  they be getting electricity from. That’s ‘cause you know this is a setup. They wait for people to come here and ambush them.”

“Then why would Louis bring us here?” says Violet. “Even  he’s not that stupid. If he knows the neighborhood, he would know—”

“Because he doesn’t ever take anything seriously,” says AJ. “Not like we do. That’s why he wouldn’t tell us why we had to stay on the path or not go upstairs. Because he knew we wouldn’t have come here otherwise. You know I’m right, Clem.”

“Shit,” says Violet.

“That’s how they know,” says AJ. “People can’t take everything out of these houses all at once. They’ll come back. And when they do, the people who put all this stuff here will be waiting for them. For us.”

“Why would anyone go to all this trouble on the off chance that someone shows up here and busts in?” says Violet.

Because the only people left alive are crazy enough to kill anyone who hasn’t learned to see this fucked up world the same way they do.

“Put everything back just like you found it,” I say as I take out my gun. “Now.”

AJ sets the ice cube tray back in the freezer. Violet takes the shampoo and runs back into the bathroom. I try to smooth out the mud tracks on the carpet but they just won’t disappear.

“Hurry,” I call to Violet. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”

She races into the kitchen and joins me and AJ at the back door. We crack it open and check for movement. Nothing.

“I’ll cover you,” I say.

“No, Clem,” says AJ. “I’ll cover you.”

“Let’s go,” growls Violet.

She practically drags me out of the house. We take off toward the gates where Louis is waiting. He uncrosses his arms and gives us a worried look. AJ isn’t far behind us.

“What did you get?” he says.

“Go!” I yell as we run toward him. “Through the gate.”

“But why didn’t you—”

We eat dirt and snow as a giant explosion sends us to the ground. The windows of the house we were just in shatter into pieces. Violet helps me to my feet. We race through the gate, leaving it slightly open for anyone else dumb enough to come here and almost get themselves blown up. We keep running until we get to that little stream clear enough to see our own soot-covered faces.

“I  told you,” says AJ.

“Holy shit,” says Violet.

“We’re putting the bedsheets back,” I say. “I don’t want them tracking us all the way through the woods.”

“Would they really follow us that far?” says Louis.

“They would,” I say. “They’ve done it to me before.”

“Damn,” he says.

“We’re taking the long way home and backtracking to cover up where we’ve been,” I say. “And you’re going to keep your mouth shut the entire time so they don’t have anything to follow.”

Louis doesn’t say another word as he leads us through the snow-blanketed trees.


	3. AJ

The sun’s almost gone when Clem finally lies down in her bed. I have to take her leg off for her, that’s how tired she is. Louis brings us two big pieces of bread that taste like sand. I’m too tired to be mad at him right now. Lucky for him when he opens his mouth, Omar’s the one who does the talking.

“I found some flour down in that dungeon we call the basement,” Omar says. He hands us a bowl of weird-looking brown meat. “Aasim managed to nab a couple of squirrels who came out of hiding. I don’t think they’re going to make that bread taste much better, though. We have enough to last for three days. After that…”

“Thanks for giving us something to put in our stomachs,” says Clem. She chews with her eyes closed. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I think I could sleep for a hundred years. Where’s Violet?”

“Standing watch,” says Omar. “She hasn’t talked to anyone since you guys got back.”

“I’ll do my best to stay away from her, then,” says Louis. “If she didn’t even come down from the lookout tower for Clementine…”

“We just need to let her cool off,” says Clem. “Good night, Louis.”

That means it’s time for him to leave. Louis gets the hint. I lie down next to Clem without even asking. I think she’s already asleep. I pull our big blanket over us. If walkers get in here, it’ll make us slower, but if we don’t use it, we won’t be able to move at all ‘cause we’ll be frozen.

I wake up to sunlight coming in through the window. It’s time to get Omar’s cooking flint and light this fire so Clem can stop shaking in her sleep. Louis is waiting in the hallway. He should go away.

“Hey, little man,” says Louis.

“Why are you hanging out in our hallway?” I say.

“Your hallway?” he says. “I’m supposed to let Clementine know that we’re ready to meet and talk about you know what.”

“The bomb?” I say.

“Uh, well, not exactly. What we’re going to do for food.”

“Yeah, I’ll tell her. I’m good at that. Telling her things.”

“Right. See you there.”

I get a nice fire going with Omar’s flint. That makes the room warmer but Clem doesn’t seem to notice. She’s moaning and making faces like someone is hurting her. I shake her shoulder until her eyes open. They’re all red and wet.

“I think you were dreaming about the ranch again,” I say.

“I was,” she says.

She sits up and stacks her pillows behind her back. She grabs me all of a sudden and hugs me real tight.

“This time in my dream,” she says, “I stopped outside the ranch because I didn’t want to have to shoot that woman again. That’s when a bomb went off.”

“I’m gonna talk to Louis about that bomb,” I say. “He should have warned us.”

“I need you to stay cool for Violet,” she says. “Can you do that?”

“For Violet?” I say. “Oh, so she doesn’t yell at everyone. I guess I can.” Louis peeks his head inside the door. “I think they’re ready to talk to us, now.”

“Let them in.”

Louis, Aasim, Ruby, Omar, and Willy sit down on the floor around our fire. I turn on the oil lamp and set it on a chair next to Clem’s legs to keep them warm. Louis is too close to my bed and I don’t like the way he’s staring at Clem while pretending not to stare at Clem. I gotta keep my mouth shut, though, so Violet doesn’t lose her temper. Violet comes in last and sits down on the bed next to Clem. She puts her hand on Clem’s knee without really looking at her. I frown at Clem but Clem just raises her eyebrows at me, so I get up and grab the big stirring stick to make sure the fire’s burning nice and hot.

“So,” Violet says to her feet. “Is there anything you want to say about what happened yesterday?”

“Who are you talking to?” says Willy.

“Look, I get it,” says Louis. “You’re upset about what happened, but there’s no way any of us could have known.”

“Yes, we could,” I say. I throw the stick down into the fire. “You could have told us, but we had to figure it out. I knew the front door was booby trapped.”

“You  thought you knew,” says Louis.

“Yeah, and I was right,” I say.

Clem’s staring at me with a mean look on her face. This is too important to just let it go.

“All right, so we picked the wrong house and didn’t get lucky,” Louis says.

“ You were the one who picked the house and ‘unlucky’ is the understatement of the century,” says Violet.

“Well, you did pick that caravan and they turned out to be harmless,” says Louis. “Next time, I’ll let  you decide where to scavenge.”

“Harmless?” says Violet. “More like useless. They didn’t have anything worth trading for. We had to hide all our shit so they’d leave. Fuck.”

Violet’s face is turning red. She’s breathing really loud through her nose.

“Violet,” says Clem. It sounds like the voice she uses when we’re talking at night before we go to sleep.

“ What? ” says Violet.

Clem doesn’t say anything. I try not to look at Violet. Everyone else stares at the fire.

“Sorry,” whispers Violet, but she doesn’t look sorry at all.

“Is there something you want to say?” says Clem. “We’re all here to listen. You can tell us what’s on your mind.”

“You know what’s on my mind,” Violet says. “The fucking bomb that went off inside that house. And we would have been in there when it did if AJ hadn’t been so paranoid.”

“A bomb?” says Ruby.

“Awesome,” says Willy.

“Not awesome,” says Aasim.

“Not surprising, either,” says Omar, “but definitely not awesome.”

“It’s a good thing I didn’t go,” says Aasim. “I should have known Louis doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.”

“What?” says Louis. “Why am I the bad guy here? We didn’t have food. I knew of a place that might have food. And didn’t Clementine say she found a grenade among all that food in the train station?”

“Ow,” says Clem.

“I didn’t meant it as an insult,” says Louis.

I think Clem’s face is all screwed up because Violet is squeezing her leg really, really hard. I’m about to stop her when she takes her hand off Clem’s leg.

“Sorry,” Violet says to herself.

Clem grabs Violet’s hand and pulls her closer. Why is Clem running her thumb over Violet’s fingers after Violet hurt her? I don’t know which one of them is worse: Violet or Louis. They both make Clem do stupid things.

“We should have grabbed all that stuff and left right away,” I say, “instead of standing around and talking about stupid stuff.”

“You’re right, AJ,” Clem says. “We can’t let our guard down like that again. Right, Violet?”

Violet doesn’t say anything. Why is she always staring at the floor?

“She knows you’re right, Clem,” says Ruby. “We need to be more proactive about gathering resources. We don’t know who else is out there. They might be running low like we are.”

“And when they get low, they get desperate,” says Clem. “They follow other people for a long, long time.”

“Look, I’m sorry, all right?” says Louis. “I know Hancock sounded too good to be true. And maybe it was. But I didn’t see any other options. I wanted to be useful. I know how you guys talk about me when you think I’m not listening.”

“So you’ve developed a conscience or some shit?” says Violet.

This is dumb. Clem needs to get them to stop arguing about stuff that doesn’t matter. She looks at me and nods. She must have read my mind.

“That’s not what I meant, Louis,” she says. “That house had electricity.”

“What?” says Aasim.

“From where?” says Willy.

“That house had a running refrigerator but looked like nobody had lived in it for years,” says Clem. “Everything else we’ve ever come across has been ransacked and torn to pieces.”

Nobody talks. Louis sighs.

“Everyone who lives around there knows the houses aren’t safe,” he says. “That’s why they haven’t been touched in years. You step off the stone path, you might find a land mine like Violet said. The front gate was supposed to be electrified. I didn’t expect AJ to crawl right through the bars.”

“I swear to fucking god,” says Violet.

“You mean AJ could have been…” says Clem.

“This is a new low for you, Louis,” says Aasim. “Not that I’m surprised. I think I’ll go hunting by myself from now on. Might even have better luck.”

“I think we should do everything without Louis from now on,” says Violet.

“Come on, Violet,” says Louis. “Don’t be like that. I’ll go to Hancock by myself and bring back a whole bag full of goodies. The rest of you can just stay here and relax. If I don’t come back, avenge my death. On second thought, don’t do that. You can make a mound for me in the graveyard. Put me next to Brody so I can listen in on your conversations.”

“Yeah, I’ll put you in the fucking ground,” says Violet.

“If I’m lucky, the walkers will get me before that happens,” says Louis.

Somewhere out in the woods, there’s a really loud sound like a tree branch snapping off and falling to the ground.

“What was that?” says Omar.

“Are we being raided again?” says Ruby.

“By who?” says Willy. “I thought walkers ate all the raiders.”

I pull out my gun. Clem has hers, too, even though she’s still in bed. Louis should have his bow but he doesn’t.

“AJ,” says Clem. “You wait. Don’t you go running off by yourself.”

“I’m not,” I say. “I’m just extra prepared for anyone who comes in here.”

“How would anyone get in here?” says Aasim. “Wait, who’s supposed to be on watch?”

“Willy?” says Ruby.

“Louis said everyone was supposed to come to the meeting,” says Willy.

“Oh, no,” says Louis, “don’t try to pin this one on me. I’ve got enough to deal with.”

“Everyone, shut up!” says Clem. They stare at her. She takes a deep breath. “We have to think clearly. We do the wrong thing, it’ll be the last thing we do.”

“Let’s send Louis out to see what it is,” says Violet.

“Ouch, Violet,” says Louis. “That stings.”

“Not as much as the back of my hand would.”

Clem sits up and checks how many bullets she has in her gun.

“Since you’re not going to listen to me,” she says, “I’ll go and see what it is myself.”

She stands up on her good leg. I have to jump in front of her to keep her from walking away. She doesn’t even have her wooden leg on. Violet hugs Clem from the side so Clem can’t go around me.

“Clem,” says Violet, “sit down.”

I didn’t think Clem would listen, but Clem sits down on the side of the bed against her palms and lets her short leg hang off the edge next to her gray sock. She stares up at Violet with this really weird look in her eyes.

“You and me,” I say to Violet. “If anyone’s out there, we’re faster than them.”

“I know you’re in there!” comes a shout from the courtyard. “Come out here or you’re gonna have problems!”

Is that a kid? By himself? They’re never by themselves. Fuck this shit.

I run out the bedroom door and around the hallway corner. I don’t listen to Clem when she yells at me—she’s gonna give away where I am. I make my footsteps real quiet when I get to the main door of the “dorm”, the one that looks out over the courtyard. I don’t know why they call this building a dorm. That’s a dumb word, just as dumb as whoever this is if they’re alone and out in the open telling us right where they are. Maybe he’s a prisoner and they told him he had to do this or they’d kill him. That’s how they’re gonna lure us out. I put my ear up to the door so he doesn’t see me through the four little windows above my head. I knew it—I can hear him breathing real heavy on the other side. A stupid person would expect us to come out the front door of the admin building, but a smart person would hide. I don’t know which one of these he is. I just know that when someone is crazy, it doesn’t matter how smart you think you are, ‘cause the only people that care about a dead person’s brains are walkers.

I shoot through the fucking door. Both bullets. There’s a groaning sound. Something falls over. Violet sneaks up to me with Clem’s gun in her hand. She looks at me like Clem does when she’s reading my mind. When Violet nods at me, that’s how I know I did the right thing.

Violet turns the doorknob and cracks the door open. She covers the courtyard from an angle behind the wall. I kick the door all the way open and point the barrel of my empty gun at…some kid. Maybe about as old as Willy. He’s even uglier than Willy, though. I didn’t know that was possible. He’s crying like a baby and bleeding like a dead rabbit. I have to keep myself from putting my gun away even though Violet’s still covering the courtyard. He might be faking it, even with blood coming out of his belly. And someone might be heading this way after they heard where the gunshots came from.

Or maybe they’re just gonna leave him here to die. Clem told me about when her group was taken prisoner. It was a bunch of bad people who tricked them by pretending to be nice. They killed someone in the group for no reason. I’m not gonna let any of us go out like that.

“Where are your friends?” I say.

Violet ducks behind the low wall next to the sidewalk outside. I step back into the hallway.

“Where are they hiding?” I ask the kid through the wall.

“They’re all dead,” he says. It’s hard to understand him because he’s sobbing so much. “I came here to warn you about those houses. I saw you guys trying to take stuff from them.”

“Were you the one who put the bomb in there?” I say.

“No,” he says. “There’s a group not far from there. They set traps in those houses to keep people away. They got all of us. I’m the only one left.”

Omar comes up behind me talking to himself. I’m glad he does that because I might have punched him between the legs if he didn’t. Ruby and Aasim are with him.

“You gonna finish me off?” says the kid.

Clem comes up to me. I know it’s her because she’s hopping on one leg with her hand against the wall. Her eyebrows are frowning but she’s not angry. She looks sad.

“Clem, you can’t be going around like that,” I say. “You need to wear your leg.”

She moves me aside with her arm and leans against the door frame so she can look out at the kid on the ground. She looks at me for way too long, then looks at my gun, then back at the kid. Why does she have tears on her cheeks?

“Clem, this isn’t like…”

“Fuck,” says Aasim. “Yeah, this isn’t like Marlon. So fucking what?”

“Ruby,” says Clem. “Can you fix him?”

I peer around the corner. Ruby kneels down and looks at the kid’s stomach. She stands up and shakes her head.

“I doubt it,” she says. “He’s lost a lot of blood. We’d have to spend supplies we don’t really have on a stranger we decided to shoot instead of talk to.”

“Can you try?” says Clem.

“Aasim’s been  trying to hide a fever from me and I don’t even have aspirin for that,” says Ruby. “For all I know, our uninvited guest might need surgery I don’t know how to do.”

“I can take care of it,” I say.

“Looks like you already did,” says Aasim.

“AJ, no,” says Clem. Her face looks real serious. “That’s not what I want. We don’t even know his name.”

“We don’t need to,” I say. “That way we won’t remember him.”

“Billy,” the kid says. “My name’s Billy.”

“Just like your friend Willy,” says Clem.

“He’s not my friend, Clem,” I say. “He came here when he shouldn’t have. What if he crawls away and tells his group where we are and then they’re out there waiting for us the next time we go hunting or looking for supplies?”

“He has a point,” says Aasim.

“Or maybe he doesn’t come back and they come looking for him,” says Louis.

“Finally using your brain?” says Violet. She comes back inside. “If he’s lying and has friends who know where he went, they might know where to look for us.”

The kid’s breathing slows down. It sounds like his throat isn’t big enough to get air into his lungs. His eyes are doing this weird fluttering thing. If I watch this for too long, I’m gonna get weak. And I don’t mean throwing up. I spin my gun even though it doesn’t have any bullets left.

“AJ…” says Clem.

“Hold on, AJ,” says Louis. “I can find what he needs in Hancock. Ruby would just need to keep him alive until sundown. If a bomb gets me…well, I’m guessing none of you will miss me.”

“It’s not about missing,” I say. “It’s about doing what needs to be done. We stand around talking and we’re gonna get killed. It almost happened in that house.”

I point my gun at the kid’s head.

“AJ,  no ,” Clem says.

“Why not? You said I could make the tough decisions.”

“This isn’t one of them. Look at him. Does he look like he can stand up and take that gun from you?”

“You couldn’t stand up in the barn. You’re alive because I did the right thing.”

“And I’m glad you did. Every day. But you’ve started bringing that up every single time I tell you not to do something.”

Clem looks down at her leg stump. She knows I’m right. I didn’t mean to yell at her, though. She puts her forehead against the wall. Her cheeks get really wet. She’s crying just like the kid outside. I’ve never seen her cry that much except when we were in the barn. Maybe I shouldn’t talk about that so much.

“AJ,” whispers Violet.

She looks to Clem, then looks at me while she puts Clem’s gun in her jeans and hides it under her jacket. Violet gives me the same look that Clem does when she wants to get her way and she knows I don’t want her to. Where did Violet learn to do that? Did Clem teach her?

“Fine,” I say. I put my gun away. “But he’s gonna die anyways. You know that.”

“No, I don’t,” Clem says. “Ruby? Can you stitch him up long enough for us to get some supplies?”

“Well,” says Ruby, “I’ve got some needle and thread that might hold him for a spell if we can get Willy to sacrifice some of his duct tape for something other than ‘science’.”

“You mean blowing stuff up,” I say.

“That would be it,” says Ruby. “It’ll buy him eight, maybe ten hours. If we don’t have some serious medical supplies by evening, I don’t think he’ll make it through the night.”

“We’re going now,” says Clem. “Keep him alive for us.”

“I can’t make any promises,” says Ruby.

Aasim comes up to Clem and puts his hand on her shoulder.

“Hey,” he says. “That kid’s not AJ.”

“I know,” she says. “But he’s not much older than AJ, is he?”

“AJ’s going to be older than that,” Aasim says. “A lot older.”

“I hope you’re right,” she says.

She walks down the hall, hopping on her good leg and running her hand against the wall. I don’t know why she didn’t at least bring her crutches. She must not be thinking at all. I have to get ready to use my thinking powers to help her remember what we need to do to stay alive.


	4. Clementine

We need medical supplies for Billy. That’s all I can think about as I walk back to my bedroom to gather my things. AJ isn’t far behind me. He flips opens his gun’s cylinder and spins it—he doesn’t have any bullets left, does he? I should have counted the shots. He was threatening Billy with an empty gun. How did Billy get into the courtyard in the first place? We had it secured. No, I can’t let this get to me. How many times have we had to do things like this before?

Too many.

As soon as I open the top drawer of our dresser, the room starts spinning. The light coming in from the window is too bright. I lie down on the bed with two pillows under my head. I don’t even remember sleeping last night. My eyes are closed but I can’t tell whether I’m dreaming or not. Somewhere in the background, Violet tells AJ she’s going with Louis to Hancock. AJ’s going to tell me we don’t need to go anywhere. We can wait for Louis and Violet to come back. If you say so, goofball. Just let me rest and sleep off this terrible headache.

AJ’s gone when I wake up. Guilt and fear flood my body—I need to find Ruby and see how Billy’s doing. Please tell me you didn’t patch up his stomach with duct tape. I strap on my wooden leg and—damn it. My knee’s still asleep. No good for walking. I’ll have to use my crutches until my leg wakes up. I make my way up the stairs to the couch that Ruby calls her “nurse’s office”. No Ruby in sight, just Billy’s closed eyes peeking out from underneath a thin blanket suspended above his stomach on posts sticking out of the couch cushions. His stitches look like something I would have done, but at least he’s breathing. And no duct tape.

A whining grunt greets me from the floor behind the couch. Rosie’s lying down next to Ruby. Ruby’s fast asleep. Aasim looks like he’s burning up. Ruby must have been up all night with him. I really need to know whether Billy’s going to be all right. Sorry, Ruby. I hope I’m not taking you out of a nice dream.

“Wha—what is it?” says Ruby. “Oh, Clementine.” She yawns. “I hope you slept better than I am.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Is he…how is Billy?”

“He’s doing all right,” says Ruby. “He should last until evening if he takes in enough water. He won’t eat anything, though, not with those holes in his stomach. I wouldn’t be surprised if he dies from blood loss before morning.”

“I don’t think I can sit around here and do nothing,” I say.

“You can watch him if you want,” Ruby says. “Wake me up if he coughs up blood. Aasim is approaching high fever territory. We don’t have any aspirin and there’s nothing I can do for him except stay at his side.”

Ruby yawns and rests her head on a bunched up blanket.

“I’ll find something for him,” I say.

Ruby answers me by humming to herself.

“Clem,” says AJ. His little head appears at the top of the stairway. “We don’t need to go anywhere.”

“I know,” I say. “Louis and Violet went to Hancock, but that’s five hours away. We can do better.”

“How do you know that?” says AJ.

“You were in my dreams,” I say. “No explosions, this time.”

“Louis told me to say that,” says AJ. “Violet went with him, and she’s still really mad at him, so I think she’ll make him tell her where all the traps are. We can stay here and wait for them.”

“No, AJ,” I say. “I can’t just sit around here waiting for Billy to die. I have to do something about it. I’ve seen the maps in the headmaster’s office. There’s an old golf course two hours northeast of here where people used to live. It’s out in the woods, just like us.”

“What’s a golf course?” says AJ.

“A bunch of big, open fields for a game where you a hit a little ball with a stick into a little hole really far away.”

“That sounds dumb.”

“Well, nobody’s around to play that dumb game anymore. I’m going to go see whether there’s anything left in those fancy golf houses.”

“I’m coming with you. I know Violet doesn’t want you to go anywhere, but I promised her I would watch your back while she’s gone, so that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“Good boy. With any luck, we’ll be back before Violet and Louis. Let’s go.”

AJ and I make our way northeast through the woods until we reach a marked trail with signs that point the way to Hole Number 4. AJ’s got my gun and his empty revolver. Since Louis actually listened to Aasim for once and took a hunting bow that isn’t painted every color of the rainbow, I’ve got Louis’s orange-wheeled bow. I also decided to bring along Aasim’s shotgun seeing as how Aasim can’t exactly use it in his condition. Eventually, the trees empty out into a paved circle ringed by houses that must have been a neighborhood once upon a time. Now, it’s just a weed-infested trash pit graveyard filled with the bodies of dead cars marked by two-story houses with rotting wooden siding. One house—it must have been white, once—is covered with walker guts along the base in several places near the front lawn’s scraggly bushes. Looks like maybe someone fought off a herd with a shotgun. Or is that real blood? Doesn’t look too old, but it’s not fresh, either. Hard to tell exactly what it is at this distance, and I’m not about to get any closer until AJ and I know what we’re up against.

A snapping sound in the brushy undergrowth sends us scrambling behind the rusted out frame of what used to be a car. AJ pulls out his revolver to check whether he has any bullets left, but I’m not quick enough to stop him from spinning the chambers and flicking the cylinder back into place. A squirrel darts out of the brush into a nearby tree and zips up the bark like its tail is on fire. I sit up against the car’s rusted shell and take a deep breath.

“You have to be more careful,” I whisper. “What if that had been a walker?”

AJ puts his revolver away and takes out my gun. He frowns at his shoes.

“Walkers are dumb and slow,” he says to himself. “I’d only be worried if it were a person.”

“If it were a person, we might be dead, which is exactly my point.”

“But it wasn’t. And anyways, I wanted that squirrel to come out of hiding. Now we know where it is.”

“That doesn’t sound like you at all. You gave away our position. We can’t afford to take those kinds of risks.”

“We left the school, didn’t we? We spend too much time there. It’s making us soft. That’s how that kid got inside.”

“His name is Billy,” I say. “And we still don’t know whether he was a threat to us. We don’t have to be hard all the time, AJ. We’ve earned the right to let our guard down when we’re safe in the school. It’s when we’re out here where people might shoot us that we have to be able to stop thinking of them as people long enough to deal with them if that’s what it takes.”

“I don’t know,” AJ says. “It just feels weird when I have to switch back and forth. It’s like when I wake up from a bad dream but I’m still tired and wanna go back to sleep. But I know I shouldn’t because then I’ll just have more bad dreams.”

“I know what you mean,” I say. “You’ll get the hang of it. I’m still getting the hang of it. Now, let’s focus on finding medical supplies for Aasim and Billy.”

“And Ruby. She looks tired. Where should we check first?”

“Let’s start with the cars. See if there’s anything hiding inside them.”

“Who would put a first aid kit in a seat cushion? Shouldn’t we maybe check the houses like you said you were going to? It’s safer in there and they might actually still have stuff in them.”

“How do you know they’re safe? What if there’s a whole family of walkers just waiting for us to come in there so they can eat us for dinner?”

“If I were a bandit, I’d know people were thinking like that, so I’d put all my stuff in the houses since there’s not much left of them to blow up.”

“Maybe you’ve had too much time to think while you’re sitting around in the school,” I say with a playful smile.

“Maybe,” AJ says with a frown.

“I’m going to hold open the hood of this car while you check the engine just in case the latch is broken and the hood won’t stay open on its own.”

“’Cause if you didn’t, it might close on me when I was ready to leave and I could get trapped inside.”

“Now you’re thinking.”

The first three cars we check must have been stripped of anything useful a long time ago. They’ve even taken chunks out of the metal frames. The fourth one is a truck as big as a tank in those old war movies dad used to watch. We get really lucky with this one: bandages in the glove box and a bottle of aspirin tucked away in the metal housing where an engine would normally go. The expiration date is five years ago, but Ruby told us to grab whatever we could find no matter how old it is.

“Hey, Clem,” says AJ from somewhere inside the truck. I’m still holding the hood open. “There’s a white box with—”

“Shh,” I whisper. “You’re too loud.”

“Sorry,” he whispers. “There’s a white plastic box with a bunch of stuff in it underneath the seat cushions.”

“What’s inside?”

“Per-peroxide, fluffy white stuff, more…more-fine.”

“Morphine,” I say. “Sounds like we hit the jackpot.”

I’m so excited about our find that I drop the hood without even thinking. That’s when I remember what I told AJ about not making so much noise.

“Shit.”

I crouch down and look around. No walkers in sight. AJ’s still hidden inside the truck. Maybe he’s waiting to see whether anyone noticed the sound. Smart thinking. I peer over the hood of the truck through the frame where the windshield used to be and throw myself onto my ass just as an actual fucking bullet hits the metal above the dashboard and zings past my eyes so close I swear I see the manufacturer’s name. I go down onto my stomach.

“AJ,” I hiss.

“There’s three of them, Clem,” he whispers. “They’re hiding by one of the houses in front of us. I don’t think you can hit them from here without them seeing you.”

“Can you come to me?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to go through the window. I think they’d see me. I’m looking at them through a tiny hole. They’re staring at the truck. One of them has a rifle. The others must be hiding their guns. I think I can take them.”

A little hole in the truck’s frame doesn’t give him a very wide angle. Nocking an arrow puts me at risk if they close the gap with me. My shotgun is only effective at short range. I can’t risk peeking again to see where they are.

A couple more shots ricochet off the truck’s metal frame. Why are they wasting bullets? Are they trying to draw walkers on purpose? If they are, they’re giving away their location with more noise than AJ and I made.

“Clem,” he whispers. “They don’t know I’m here. I’ll cover you while you run inside one of the houses where they can’t see you.”

“I am  not leaving you,” I say.

“I know you don’t wanna hear about the barn again, but please listen to me. They know where you are and they can rush you ‘cause they don’t have wooden legs like you do.”

“Fuck,” I say. He’s right. “Save your bullets, AJ.”

I lift the shotgun over the hood of the truck without looking and fire off a single-barreled blast that should go over the truck’s roof. I race away from the metal frame and up the nearest house’s weed-ridden driveway. I smash right through the front door with my shoulder and slam it shut behind me with my elbow. I roll onto my back against the door frame right as a bullet tip appears in the door half an inch from my eye socket. I need to find a place to—

“What the fuck?”

In the living room, two bodies, a man and a woman, lie face-up underneath the wheel of a truck. At the steering wheel sits another woman whose head must have spider-webbed the windshield when the truck hit a wall. An empty plastic vodka bottle rests next to her on the dashboard. The man and the woman under the truck’s tire both have their pants around their ankles. I knife all three of them in the head and look around for a place to take up a firing position.

A gunshot rings out from the cul-de-sac, breaking through the living room’s curtained window and deflating the truck’s front right tire. There’s an L-shaped staircase next to the dining room that leads up to the second floor. I race up the flight of stairs, taking a left at the corner, and from there run straight into the master bedroom—what a fucking mess. A dead dog’s bloody remains are wrapped up in soiled bedsheets. The big bedroom window no longer exists, but when it did, the windowsill started at my knees and the glass stretched up higher than my head. That gives me plenty of cover and a wide view of the cul-de-sac. I set the shotgun down on the puke-colored carpet—whether that’s natural or man-made, I don’t even want to guess—and stand half-hidden behind the wall as I draw an arrow on the two assholes slowly creeping up to AJ’s truck. No, I’d better aim at the guy with the rifle hiding in the bushes. It really sucks that AJ is growing up thinking that this is what happens every time you go places where people used to live. What sucks even worse is that those three assholes are about to make friends with a  lot of walkers coming in from the surrounding woods. More than I can count. And they’re going to be all over AJ’s truck if these guys don’t volunteer to distract them. I can arrange that.

I aim for the head of the guy in the bushes. I don’t know exactly how high to elevate my shot from this distance, but I have to make it count. I let the arrow fly. It hits him somewhere in the body. He drops his rifle.

“I’m hit!” he shouts. “Somewhere in that house!”

I make myself disappear behind the wall. If AJ was wrong and the other two guys aren’t hiding guns, they’ll expose themselves when they go for their friend’s rifle. Otherwise, they’ll be setting up and I’ll have to peek to keep their attention away from AJ. I nock another arrow and step out briefly, but the two guys are already scattering in opposite directions out of sight. AJ peeks his head out of the truck’s frame, looks at the guy I just put an arrow into, then looks up in my direction. I hold out Louis’s bow for half a second so AJ can see the orange wheels. He holds up the first aid kit. I give him the thumbs up, then motion downward with my hand to tell him he needs to hide again. He does the exact opposite: he points his gun at the wounded guy who’s clawing for his rifle without much success. AJ’s going to give away his position and he’ll need every bullet he has if any of those walkers are the fast-moving kind.

“AJ, no!” I shout.

I had to do it. Focus on me, not him. AJ looks up at me with wide eyes. I point at the guy behind him and make a grabbing motion. I just hope he understands me—he needs to take that rifle and get away from those walkers before they converge on him. But the guy’s not moving anymore, which means—

He grunts a couple of times like he’s choking on his own blood, then lets out a death rattle and climbs to his feet. Before I can line up an arrow on him, AJ puts a bullet between the guy’s eyes and he goes down. The walkers that were shambling in from the woods start walking faster toward the sound that came from AJ’s gun. He’s too short to kneecap them and knife their heads fast enough—there’s too many of them.

A creaking sound from the staircase sends me onto my back next to my shotgun right as a rock grazes my forehead. It draws blood before bouncing off the wall behind me and coming to rest beside the double barrels of my shotgun. I one-hand it up to my hip as I sit up. My trigger finger clenches automatically and I launch a slug right into the chest of a dirt-faced guy with wolf’s fur hair and a bomber jacket from fifty years ago. He slumps down against the wall, takes a ragged breath, and slides down the stairs.

“Holy shit, man!” comes a guy’s voice from behind the staircase wall. “Don’t shoot! I surrender. I don’t even have a gun.”

He doesn’t sound much older than Billy. Then again, a lot of people turn into babies when you shoot their fucking friend in front of them. I take a look outside. AJ is hiding under the truck where the walkers can’t get to him because they’re too stupid to figure out how to get down onto the ground and crawl unless their legs have been blown off and they have no choice.

“Get out of here or I’ll shoot!” I say to the kid.

“I can’t,” he says. “There’s too many of them out there. I’ll never make it.”

“You come up here, you’re dead.”

“I’ll stay here, then. I won’t move, I promise, but those walkers look like they’re coming toward the house.”

“Yeah, and you brought them here.”

I stand the shotgun up next to the windowsill and line up an arrow on the first walker I see. He goes down with a shot to the head and so does the next one. I brought thirty arrows with me but there must be at least a hundred walkers down there.

“They’re coming into the house!” says the kid in a panicked voice.

“You’re drawing them right to you with all that shouting,” I say.

I pick up the rock the dead guy threw at me and hurl it as hard as I can against a rusted out frame three cars away from where AJ’s hiding. Some of the walkers turn around and move toward the sound, but that’s not nearly enough of them. A bunch of them are still trying to figure out how to get to AJ. I flick open the shotgun barrels: one slug left.

“What do I do?” says the guy.

If I shoot the last slug from my shotgun to distract the walkers, it might draw them away from AJ, but then I won’t have anything to shut down this guy at close range if he stops pretending to be scared and charges me. I guess I’ll just have to find out.

I kneel-walk past the window and round the corner with my sights on some wild-haired kid holding his dead friend in his arms. I pull the trigger and take out a chunk of wall plaster above his head that falls all over him and his friend like dusted snow.

“Shit, I thought you were gonna kill me,” he says. “Can you help me lift him up? He fell on me.”

Together, we lift the dead body from his lap and send it rolling down the stairs. The kid stands up and takes aim with the gun he had hidden under his friend’s body. I strike his gun arm with my shotgun, but he grabs the barrels and shoves the shotgun’s butt into me, causing me to lose my balance. I grab onto his jacket with my free hand and take him tumbling halfway down the staircase to where it turns at a right angle. He lands on top of his dead friend and I land on top of him. I straddle him while he’s still whining about falling and take the shotgun from his grasp. I hold it against his neck with both arms. He lifts his gun and points it in my direction. I let go of the shotgun with my left hand and squeeze his gun-wielding wrist as hard as I can. He’s smaller than I am, but he’s strong, and I think he’s getting the upper hand. The walkers bust in through the door down the stairs next to the living room. I can’t afford to take my eyes off this kid for even a second to look at them. Their stupid fucking growling tells me they’re coming right for us. I have to do something now. I don’t want to kill this kid—he reminds me of AJ—but I have no choice.

I bite into his ear as hard as I can and rip it from the skin on his head. I spit it out, leaving a bloody mess all over my mouth and beneath his hair where his ear used to be. I punch him in the face while he howls, take the handgun from his weakened grip, and shove it into my jeans. I lift up my shotgun—the walkers are at the bottom of the stairs. They’re going to eat him alive.

I stand up and tomahawk the shotgun butt down onto his face. Once, twice, three times. He’s not moving. One more time for good measure, then up the steps I go right as the walkers get to him and rip open his belly to eat his intestines.

Goddamn it.

I’m going to tell AJ the walkers got those two. The gunshots he heard were those guys defending themselves. You were right, kiddo. They were hiding their guns. But their guns didn’t save them. We’ve seen this happen before. Best to just forget about it and move on.

When I get up to the window, the walkers around AJ’s truck have disappeared. That final shotgun blast and the smell of two dead bodies must have been enough to convince them. You never know what it’s going to take to get these dumbasses to listen to you: sometimes a bunny hopping through rainy grass is enough to draw a whole herd of them, other times you need to sound a car horn for fifteen seconds straight before they can even be bothered to turn around and check it out.

My biggest problem now is how I’m going to get out of this house without fucking up my leg. I don’t have time to take it off, so I’ll just have to perch myself on the windowsill with my bow around my neck and my arrow quiver strapped to my back and hope for the best. I don’t think the shotgun can come with me. I need both arms to soften my fall.

When I land, I lose half my arrows and knock the wind out of myself, but I’m still alive and in one piece. AJ peers at me from underneath the truck.

“It’s safe to come out,” I wheeze as I sit up. He doesn’t move until I wave him over. “Do you have that first aid kit?”

“Yeah, Clem.”

AJ helps me up to my feet. We start running. We keep going until we’re back on the trail and out of breath.

“You have blood all over your jean jacket,” AJ says. “What happened to those guys?”

“They didn’t make it.”

“Did you shoot ‘em?”

“Come on. We need to get out of here.” I start walking. “Let’s make sure this trip was worth it. Aasim needs our aspirin and Billy could really use some bandages. That’s who we need to worry about right now.”

“I guess you’re right. You dropped some of your arrows.”

“Louis can make more,” I say. “He’ll need something to do when he gets back.”

AJ looks like he has something he wants to say, but he keeps quiet. I wish he would say something, anything, so I can stop replaying my encounter with that kid on the staircase in my head. If I hadn’t killed both of them, it might be me and AJ lying dead on those steps.

No, not ‘might’. We would be.

And here I am telling AJ all this nonsense about when to shoot and when not to shoot. Shooting is always the safest bet, but I don’t want him to grow up having to think like that.

Like I have a choice.

I’m going to try my best to forget about it. Maybe when we get back, AJ will forget to pester me about those two kids in the house. Maybe we’ll be so busy using these medical supplies to help Aasim and Billy get better that we won’t have time to think about anything else. And maybe, just maybe, when Aasim is healthy and Billy has recovered and Violet and Louis have come back in one piece with food and supplies, maybe then I’ll be able to convince AJ that things don’t always have to be this way.


	5. Clementine

When AJ and I are finally back at the school, Violet’s pacing around in the courtyard. Willy climbs down from the lookout tower to check out AJ’s first aid kit but AJ ignores him.

“Why is Violet back so soon?” AJ says.

Violet freezes in place, lets her arms hang down at her sides, and stares at me. That’s her way of running up to me and throwing her arms around me.

“Didn’t you go with Louis?” I say to her.

Violet looks at the first aid kit in AJ’s hands. She doesn’t seem to notice the blood on my jean jacket.

“I did,” she says. “And now I’m back.”

“Well, so am I,” I say.

I hug her. She smells like hot garbage. She kisses me right in front of AJ. What was I saying?

“We found medical supplies,” AJ says.

Violet looks down at him over my shoulder.

“That’s better than we did,” she says as she steps back. “The only thing we found was trouble. We weren’t even halfway to Hancock when we spotted a group with rifles walking through the trees like they were looking for something. Louis thought they might be some of the guys who live near Hancock scouting for whoever set off that bomb.”

“It was them,” says AJ. “They set it off. They were looking for us.”

“We waited for a while to see whether they’d leave,” says Violet. “They were pretty intent on staying put. We couldn’t get around them, not without being seen, so we got the hell out of there. I was going to ask you what we should do once I made it back to your room, but you weren’t there.”

“We just have to hope they don’t find your footprints and try to track you back here,” I say.

“If everyone stays put like you were supposed to,” says Violet, “we can lie low for a day or two until those guys lose interest.”

“If I had stayed put,” I say, “we wouldn’t have scavenged a first aid kit with medical supplies for Aasim and Billy.”

“Billy,” says Violet. “Yeah, well, I can bring it to Ruby for you. You probably need to rest.”

“Thanks for looking out for me,” I say, “but I really need to see how Billy’s doing.”

“Clem,” she says, “you need to go lie down. You took a really big risk going off with AJ on that leg of yours. If you do that again and don’t come back…”

Her eyes tell me she’s not asking me.

“Fine,” I say. “But you come to our room when Ruby’s done and tell me how Billy’s doing.”

Violet holds out her hand to AJ. He clutches the first aid kit in both arms.

“You can go with Violet if you want,” I say to him.

“Why are you letting her tell you what to do?” says AJ. “We were the ones who came back with the supplies.”

“I’m letting Violet win because it’s the right thing to do,” I say.

“Like when I make the tough decisions for you,” says AJ. “I get it. Here.”

He hands the first aid kit to Violet.

“Thanks,” she says. “When I’m done, maybe we can talk about where to look for food. I’m thinking somewhere south of here so we don’t run into those guys again—and not the train station. That place sucks.”

Violet kisses me on the cheek and walks off into the administration building. AJ and I head into the dormitory. Violet must have tended our fire while she was waiting for us—the room is nice and toasty. Feels good to take this wooden leg off and get some blood flowing with the help of our oil lamp. My eyes haven’t even been closed for five seconds when Ruby announces herself with a knock on our door.

“Where’s Violet?” I say.

“Since Aasim is sick with a fever,” says Ruby, “Violet is on firewood duty. Looks like your little campfire has plenty.” Ruby sits down at the foot of my bed. “I gave Aasim that aspirin you found. It expired five years ago, but it should be enough to bring his high fever down to a regular fever.”

“Expired?” says AJ. “What does that mean?”

“The expiration date is when the aspirin starts getting weaker but it still works,” says Ruby. “A bit like how Violet’s temper has cooled off now that Clem’s been here a while.”

“Look who’s talking,” I say with a smile.

“Oh, those days are long behind me,” Ruby says.

“Is that how you learned to be normal?” says AJ. “By lying in a bed with Aasim?”

“ AJ ,” I say.

Ruby’s cheeks are as red as her hair.

“What, Clem?” he says. “You and Violet do it all the time and she didn’t even notice that blood on your jacket when she saw you. Does normal mean you have to pretend you don’t see something?”

“She’s seen walker guts plenty of times,” I say.

“That’s not walker guts,” says AJ. “That’s the kind of blood you get on you when you have to smash someone’s head in so they don’t become a walker.”

“Speaking of blood,” I say, “were you able to get Billy’s wounds bandaged, Ruby?”

“Well…” says Ruby. She looks to the door. “All squared away, Violet?”

Violet sits down right next to me with one leg crossed on the bed and the other hanging over the side. Ruby stands up.

“I’d best get back to Aasim,” she says. “With a bit of luck and a healthy helping of that aspirin AJ found for us, he should get back to  normal in the next couple of days.”

Ruby closes the door behind her without making a sound. She’s pretty good at that. Says it keeps the walkers away. AJ and I should really learn how to do that.

“I overheard your conversation,” says Violet. She sets her hand on my shirt under my jacket. “Where’d the blood come from?”

“We have to tell her, Clem,” says AJ. “It was those guys, wasn’t it?”

“Shit,” says Violet. She looks worried and pissed off at the same time. “You didn’t tell me you two got ambushed. I thought you just found this stuff somewhere.”

“We did,” says AJ. “It was hidden inside a truck.”

“And it wasn’t exactly an ambush,” I say.

“Whatever it was,” says Violet, “it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t gone off by yourselves.”

“You and Louis went off by yourselves,” says AJ.

“Louis has a rock for a brain, not a tree branch for a leg,” says Violet.

“Yeah, and our brains are why we came back with supplies,” says AJ. “We were smarter than those guys. That’s why I don’t understand why Clem would fight them when we could have just shot them.”

“I didn’t fight anyone,” I say.

“You have blood on your jacket,” he says.

“And you were hidden inside the truck where you found those supplies,” I say, “which means you didn’t see what happened. I did. They were scared. They shot at movement, not us. You remember that squirrel we saw?”

“Why would they waste bullets on a squirrel? I wouldn’t. I bet you wouldn’t even be talking like this if Violet wasn’t sitting right next to you.”

“Fucking shit, Clementine,” she says. She balls up her fists in her lap. “You’re not supposed to go out scavenging. You  know that. Why didn’t you at least tell me? I would have told Louis to fuck off so I could come with you. You have to be alive to be in charge of other people and I am  not digging you a fucking grave next to Marlon’s.”

Violet sighs as she hugs me tight and buries her face in my shoulder. I set one hand on her back and the other in her white-blonde hair. Still greasy and stringy. No shampoo. I like her better that way, anyways. I do my best not to meet AJ’s frowning stare.

“Those guys drew a bunch of walkers to us on purpose,” I whisper to Violet’s ear. “One of them was a kid about the same age as Billy. I had to smash his brains in. I don’t want AJ to know about it. I think…I think if he sees too much of it, he’s going to grow up thinking it’s normal. I don’t want that for him.”

“Yeah,” she says under her breath. “I get it. You don’t want him to turn into Marlon.” She pulls away from me and stands up with one hand on my shoulder. “Everything’s cool, AJ. Clem told me the walkers got those assholes after she distracted them. You did a good job bringing back that medicine and those supplies. That’s all that matters.”

“Really?” says AJ. “Are you sure you aren’t mad about us leaving without you?”

“I am, but I’ll get over it,” Violet says. “Clem told me about how smart you were when those guys showed up. You didn’t reveal yourself and you didn’t waste bullets. I feel better knowing that you’ve got her back when I’m not there.”

“Yeah,” says AJ. “I’m pretty good at having Clem’s back. I just wish she’d be smart all of the time instead of some of the time.”

AJ looks away from my frown. I don’t like the way he’s been talking to me lately.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say.

“I just mean…” AJ looks down at the floor. “Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything. I didn’t mean to say it.”

“So, Violet, how’s Billy doing?”

“He’s resting,” says Violet.

She takes my hand—both my hands. I smile at her. She doesn’t smile back.

“He’s resting in the ground,” she says. My smile fades. “They were filling in his grave with dirt when Louis and I got back. I helped them. We said a few words even though we didn’t know him. I imagined him playing on the beach with Tenn and Brody.”

I should have known. I should have fucking known. I left instead of staying with him like Ruby told me to and he died. We could have sent Violet and Louis to that golf course neighborhood to find those supplies. Fuck.

“Was it the supplies?” I say. “Did we not have enough medical supplies? Maybe if we had gotten them faster…”

“Ruby doesn’t have much,” says Violet, “and what little she does have she can’t afford to spend on someone who was probably going to die anyways.”

“What are you saying, Violet?” Bile crawls up from the back of my throat into my mouth. “Is that the advice you gave her?”

Violet takes her hands from mine and hangs her head. The bedroom door opens without warning. Ruby walks in with her elbows at her waist and her fingers linked below them.

“Maybe we should take that door off its hinges,” I say. “It doesn’t seem to be very useful unless you’re a walker and we haven’t ever seen one of those in here, especially not one named Billy. So which one of you knifed him in the head to keep it that way?”

“I did, Clem,” Ruby says. “I was waiting outside your room because I didn’t want to stand between you and Violet when she broke the news, but you’re doing a pretty good job of that yourself.”

“Speak for yourself,” I say.

“I am,” says Ruby. “I knew you wouldn’t like hearing what Violet just told you. She didn’t advise me not to use our supplies on Billy. That’s a decision that I made and I stand by that decision. It was only a matter of time before Billy died. We need medical supplies for those of us who are still alive, Clem. For Aasim. For you. It’s been two months, but you’re still getting used to that leg of yours and—”

“I’m still getting used to being a fucking monster even after ten years,” I say. I punch the thigh of my footless leg. “ This has nothing to do with it. What would you have done if that were  me shot in the chest because one of us didn’t know I was hiding behind a door?”

“Clem, don’t talk like that,” says Violet.

“Too late,” I say.

“What Violet means to say,” says Ruby, “is that she and Louis and the rest of us would have scattered to the wind to find whatever you need. You’re like our family, now. If Billy had been here two months ago, maybe he’d be family, too. But he’s not. And family has to come first.”

“Someone told me that once,” I say. “He’s dead, now.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to be,” says Ruby. “You have something to live for. Someone.”

Violet turns her head away. I know she wants me to say it’s her. I know how she thinks. She wants me to say I’d fly with her on a rocket ship to the moon and leave everything else behind. But there are no fucking rocket ships. Only the cold, hard earth beneath us. And, some day, above us.

“Lee taught me to shoot,” I say. “He told me to aim for the head. But I didn’t teach AJ well enough. That’s why Billy got hit in the chest. It should have been the head. That’s my fault. I take responsibility. I’m the one who killed him. It might as well have been me who pulled the trigger.”

“Clem…” says AJ.

“You’re family,” I say. “Billy’s not. Right? We look out for family. I’m the one who put Billy in the ground. Not you.”

“Shit, Clem,” mutters Violet. “He’s only six years old.”

“That’s exactly why I don’t want this for him,” I say.

Ruby sits down on the bed right next to me. She takes my cold, sweaty hand in her thick fingers.

“I understand, Clem,” she says. “That’s not what I want either.”

Ruby’s stomach looks bigger. There’s no way she’s been eating more. We don’t have much to eat as it is. Is that what AJ picked up on, that Ruby’s been lying in bed with Aasim?

“That’s not what you want for your baby,” I say.

Ruby’s eyebrows go to the roof.

“What in tarnation?” she says. “Did Aasim tell you?”

“Clem read your mind,” says AJ. “She’s good at that. And she taught me how to do it.”

“I guess you two  are pretty good at that,” says Ruby. She sighs. “When my baby is born, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure she grows up safe and healthy. I know there are some things I won’t be able to hide from her. And I’m going to have take responsibility for her actions, just like you do with AJ.”

“How do you know it’s a girl?” says Violet.

“That’s what my gut is telling me,” says Ruby. “Call it a mother’s instinct. Clem’s got it, too.”

“She does?” says AJ. “When did you have a baby, Clem?”

“She already has one,” says Ruby. “I’d like her to be my baby’s godmother. I’ve even decided to name my baby Valentine after Clem.”

“Oh my god,” says Violet. She sets her palm against her forehead. “That is the dumbest fucking name I have ever heard.”

“ I like it,” says Ruby.

“Lighten up, Violet,” I say.

“Oh, Violet’s just being her old stubborn self,” says Ruby. “My mama always told me you have to be a lion before you can be a lamb.”

“What does that mean?” I say.

“Even back before all this, mama was hard with people she didn’t know,” says Ruby. “The ones who didn’t run away from her were the ones she knew she could trust. Her friends.” She looks at AJ. “Her family. Mama’s not with us anymore, but she’d want me to raise my little girl the way she never got the chance to.” Ruby squeezes my hand. “Same goes for you, Clementine.”

“Clem, what’s she talking about?” says AJ.

“She’s talking about what Lee would want me to do,” I say. “He’d want to know that I taught you to be just like him.”

“And you got to be where you are by listening to him,” Ruby says to me. “Even when he was wrong.”

“I don’t ever remember him being wrong,” I say.

“Neither will AJ,” says Ruby. “That’s why I think you, little man, need to listen to Clem and do what she says instead of making decisions on your own.”

“But…what if she  is wrong?” says AJ. “She was wrong about her leg.”

“You don’t need to remind her about that,” says Ruby. “She remembers every day she wakes up and looks at where her foot used to be. You loved her enough to make that decision for her even though it hurt her. And if you really love Clementine, you’ll understand that you don’t need to treat every decision the same way.”

“I don’t get it,” says AJ.

“When I was real little,” says Ruby, “sometimes I would sneak a cookie into my bedroom when I was supposed to be sleeping. Mama never caught me until one day I tipped the cookie jar off the top of the fridge. It broke all over the floor and woke up everyone. Mama whooped my butt for that one. Later on, I learned that mama knew every single time I took a cookie but didn’t do anything about it until I made a big ol’ mess of it.”

“So you should have been more careful,” says AJ.

“I  was careful,” says Ruby. “But I made a mistake. Nobody’s perfect. Mama knew that. She didn’t care about the broken cookie jar. She didn’t care that I took cookies. What she did care about was that I loved her. And I showed her that I loved her by keeping my hand out of the cookie jar for a month. And you know what she did after that? Every night, she’d hide a cookie for me somewhere in the kitchen. I made a game out of finding it and sneaking it back to my bedroom even though mama knew exactly what I was doing. Never touched the cookie jar again.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had any cookies,” says AJ.

“What I mean to say is, I think you should do what Clementine tells you from now on,” says Ruby. “That way she knows you love her. Like I loved my mama.”

“But Clem’s not my—wait. I know what you’re doing. You don’t need to tell me all this stuff. I already know it.”

“So prove it,” says Ruby. “You don’t need to be a lion with Clementine. She’s your family.”

“You want me to do what she says even when she’s wrong?” says AJ.

“She’s only wrong because you say she is,” says Ruby. “Not every decision is worth chopping off a leg over. How do you think that makes her feel?”

AJ looks at my leg where my foot used to be. It’s feeling better, now, thanks to the oil lamp’s soft fire.

“Sad, I guess,” says AJ. “Maybe I didn’t think about that. So you think it’s like I’m hurting her when I tell her she’s wrong and don’t do what she says?”

“It’s like you broke a cookie jar,” says Ruby.

“And she taught me all this stuff, so she feels like she’s the one who broke it,” says AJ. “Ok, Clem. I’ll do what you say. Because Ruby wants me to tell you that I love you even though you already know that.”

I can’t stop myself from smiling. It hurts, but in a good way.

“I love you, too,” I say. “And I’ll never get tired of reminding you.”

AJ crawls up onto the bed and hugs me. Violet stares at her own fingers. Ruby sets her hand on my shoulder.

“You’re a good mama, Clem,” she says. The sound of that makes me laugh. “When my baby grows up, AJ is going to teach her how to hunt and fish.”

“Really?” says AJ. Just like that, he’s done hugging me. “I mean, yeah, I am. I should go with Louis and Aasim today so I can work on my hunting skills.”

“I want you to stay here,” I say. AJ turns to me with a frown. “With me. You can find another way to help out around the school.”

“But Clem…”

“I could watch Clem for you while you’re gone,” says Violet.

AJ’s frown disappears.

“I guess I could stay here,” he says.

“My mama always won, too,” says Ruby as she stands up. “You keep showing Clem how much you love her and maybe she’ll let you go off hunting soon enough.”

“I will,” AJ says. “I’m gonna learn everything I need to know to teach your baby how to hunt.”

“That’s the spirit,” says Ruby.

“I know you will, goofball,” I say.


	6. AJ

For the next three days, I stay inside the school’s walls and find things to do so Clem will be happy. I stand up in the lookout tower with Willy and listen to his crazy stories about killer robots and the policemen that team up with other robots to hunt them down. Violet and I carry wooden beams from the junk next to the admin building all the way to the back of the school where no one ever goes. She and I use the beams make the walls strong enough to hold off a walker attack. Louis won’t teach me to use the bow because it’s taller than me. Omar won’t let me help with the cooking because the “hard tack” made of flour and water that tastes like bugs has to taste like a certain kind of bug otherwise we can’t eat it. I’d play with Rosie if I knew what dogs did for fun. Maybe I should ask Clem, but then I’d wanna ask Clem to let me go hunting with Louis and Aasim or at least go scouting in the trees for dead branches to use as firewood. She’d say no and I’d get mad and then she’d get sad. I don’t wanna see her like that.

So instead I start spending more time lying in bed like Clem does. That means I do a lot of thinking. I talk about everything that’s going on in my mind even when Clem’s not awake. She sleeps a lot for some reason. I think it’s because she told Violet not to come to our bedroom so much during the day. I don’t know if that makes Violet sad, but Clem seems to be happy about it, and if she’s happy, I’m happy. When she finally wakes up, we get to talking about all the cool stuff Willy keeps digging up all over the place.

“Willy found some old army training manuals in the basement and brought them up to the office,” I say. “What’s an army?”

Clem frowns and does that thing with her lips that makes her chin look bigger. She looks really funny when she does that, but she always gets mad at me when I laugh at her, so I stopped doing it.

“An army is…well, it used to be a big group of people who carried guns and defended us from bad guys,” she says.

“So, kinda like policemen,” I say.

“Something like that. I don’t remember much about armies other than some of the TV shows my dad used to watch.”

“It seems like everyone we meet is an army. Are we an army?”

Clem’s frown goes away. She looks sad.

“We’re just regular people, AJ,” she says. “We defend ourselves because we have to. It wasn’t always like this.”

“What was it like?”

“I…I don’t remember much.” Clem looks down at her legs. “It almost seems like another lifetime.”

“Oh,” I say. I come over to her bed and sit down next to her. “So, if walkers ever do go away, is there gonna be another army to defend us so we don’t have to?”

Clem scrunches up her face. She rubs her short leg below her knee. She says it hurts when she has to walk on her wooden leg a lot. I didn’t even know that until she told me. She’s tough.

“We don’t know how long walkers are going to be around,” she says. “That’s why we have to get used to taking care of ourselves with whatever we have. We don’t waste bullets, we don’t shoot at things we can’t see—even though we think we should, we aim for the head, we check the windows in every new building, and we make sure to have an escape plan if our last bullet won’t be enough to take out a walker.”

“How would one bullet not be enough?” I say. “I mean, nobody’s aim is  that bad. Except maybe Louis, but he doesn’t count.”

Clem laughs for the first time today.

“Just don’t tell him that,” she says. She stops smiling. “I’ve been thinking: what if things change and walkers start getting up again after we shoot them in the head?”

That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, but I don’t wanna make Clem mad, so I’m gonna pretend she’s being smart.

“I guess that could happen,” I say. “I know sometimes you have to hit a walker in the head a whole bunch of times with a hammer to make them stop moving.” No, I can’t do this. “Clem…what you’re saying is dumb.”

“I know,” she says, “but that’s what people said ten years ago about their dead neighbors coming back to life and trying to eat them.”

“Before I was born.”

“Before you were born. I’m just trying to prepare us for the worst. Some of those stories Willy tells you aren’t as crazy as you might think. I’ve seen walkers run before. I thought my friend Javi was stupid when he brought it up, but now I know he was just pointing out something I already knew and didn’t want to believe.”

“Where’s your friend Javi now?” I say.

“Somewhere in Virginia, I think. I hope.”

“I don’t know where that is. Maybe it’s better that way. I know Willy tells a lot of stories but I never believe any of them. I don’t think you should, either. You’re too smart for that.”

“It’s because I’m smart that I’m thinking about these things,” she says. She sits up all the way. “What happens if the walkers get faster or stronger or smarter? We have to be able to—”

“If they were gonna do that, they would have done it by now. You said this started when you were eight. You’re seventeen. They’ve had nine years, not ten, to stop being slow and stupid. So have you.”

“What did you just say to me?”

She looks really mad, but I can’t let this go. It’s because she’s been thinking too much. She didn’t want me to think too much, but I didn’t understand why. Now when I see her doing it, I know why.

“I know I promised to listen to you,” I say, “but that doesn’t mean I won’t say anything when I see you doing something you told me not to do. You always tell me to stop thinking all the time so my thoughts don’t eat me up inside. I stayed inside the school and my brain is just fine. You haven’t left this bedroom and you’re starting to believe all these crazy stories you tell yourself.”

Clem stares at me for a while. She leans back against her pillows. It makes me feel bad whenever I see her like that. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on her.

“I see how it is,” she says to her legs. “I’m not your mother, so I guess you don’t have to listen to anything I say. Maybe Ruby is as stupid as I am.”

“Clem, that’s not what I meant.”

“Do you even know what you meant, AJ?” She takes the pillows from behind her and tosses all of them onto the floor except one. She lies down with her head on top of that one. “I need to take a nap. Maybe you should go read some more of those army books with Willy and come up with all kinds of plans to defend us against slow and stupid walkers. You don’t need me for that.”

“Don’t be mad, Clem,” I say. “I’m just looking out for you.”

“If you say so.”

I check the magazine in Clem’s gun. Enough bullets to last a while if I’m smart. And I won’t have to save the last one for myself if I’m really smart.

“I love you, Clem,” I say.

Clem closes her eyes, shakes her head, and turns her face away.

“You could have fooled me,” she says.

I go outside and climb up into the lookout tower to see if anything’s happening out in the woods. Nothing ever is, so I have to listen to Willy’s story about a robot mom who takes care of a little girl whose real mom is dead. That makes her dad go crazy. The robot mom thinks of the girl as her own daughter the whole time. When she finds out that the little girl is a robot, too, she knew she was right.

“Do you think robots can have kids?” says Willy.

That just makes me think about Clem. I can’t get her face out of my mind.

“I think I heard something,” I say. “Give me those binoc—whatever they are.”

“Binoculars,” says Willy.

I take a real long time to look at all the trees close up and far away. Nothing. I even look right outside the school’s walls even though I don’t need these…telescopes to see what’s there. That’s when I see a guy wearing brown animal fur in one of the bushes not far from the main gates.

“Willy,” I whisper. “Crouch down and stay quiet. There’s a guy wearing bear fur in those bushes.”

Willy finally puts his dumb story book down and kneels down next to me. He takes my telescopes and looks at the bushes for a real long time.

“It’s not a guy,” he says. “It’s a bear. A brown bear.”

“Do bears have a lot of meat?”

“Yeah. Bears are huge. Violet said we could eat off one of those for weeks if we ever caught one. They’re hard to take down, though.”

“Can you look again? I need to know it’s a bear and not a person.”

“How many times do I have to look? It’s a bear.”

“I thought bears didn’t come out in winter,” I say. “Clem told me they hide in holes until spring.”

“Yeah, they do, normally,” says Willy. “My uncle worked at a zoo. He said bears wake up in winter if they get really hungry. They go looking for food.”

“Like us,” I say.

“I’m not gonna let a bear eat me,” says Willy.

“No, I meant they get hungry like we do,” I say.

“Yeah, but we don’t sleep all day every day for three months.”

Clem does. And if I can shoot that bear for us, we’ll have a bunch of meat to eat and Clem can’t get mad at me for leaving the school because I didn’t. Not really. I just need to make sure that this isn’t a person with mind powers who controls bears. I need to know that Clem’s stories aren’t really true.

“Hey, Willy,” I say.

“What?” he says.

“You think maybe that’s a bear whisperer? Like how that guy James was a walker whisperer, but with bears. Maybe he’s a bear whisperer who goes around dressed up like a bear so he can blend in with other bears and gang up on walkers.”

“Weird.”

“But a robot mom isn’t weird?”

“I guess it’s possible. Unless the walkers have super-powers.”

“How do you know about that? Did you talk to Clem?”

“No. It’s just something I thought of.”

“What kind of super-powers?”

“I’ve seen some walkers run. If the infection mutates, maybe we’ll have to start calling them runners.”

“That’s a dumb name.”

“And maybe those runners will catch up to bears and bite them and turn them into bear walkers.”

Willy looks really excited. I can probably get him to distract the bear while I aim my gun right between its eyes. I have to do it from the woods, though, otherwise walkers might come to the school.

“No way,” I say. “You think that’s a bear walker?”

“You wanna go see?” Willy says.

“Sure. I have a gun. You can take my knife.”

“Awesome.”

We climb down the ladder and go through the gate under the lookout tower. We sneak real low to the ground through snow up to our ankles and hide behind a pair of trees far enough from the bear that he can’t smell us but close enough that we can try to figure out whether he’s a bear walker or not. And we can still see the school from here. I throw my knife to Willy. He picks it up.

“AJ!” Willy hisses. “I think he heard that!”

“I’ll handle it,” I say. “Just stay where he can see you.”

“What? Are you crazy?”

“Do it.”

Willy steps out from behind his tree with my knife in his hand. The bear stands up on his hind legs and growls. I aim right between his eyes and pull the trigger.

Boom!

The bear doesn’t go down. He shakes his head like he just caught a fish in the river. Maybe he  is a walker bear. Maybe walker bears have extra-thick skulls.

“It’s coming right for us!” says Willy.

He takes off through the trees back to the school. The bear doesn’t follow him. Instead, he comes right for me on all four legs faster than any person could. I just shot him right in the head and it didn’t do anything. Where do I aim now?

Clem said you’re supposed to play dead if a brown bear attacks you. I throw myself down onto my stomach into the freezing snow and spread my legs apart so he can’t turn me over. He doesn’t. He breathes into my ear real loud and growls. Good thing I didn’t eat anything this morning otherwise it would be in my pants right now. Something sharp bites into my stomach on the left side. It hurts really, really bad. I can’t scream, though, or the bear will eat me.

I have to lie there for a long time. When the stinky bear breath leaves, that’s when I open my eyes. My sweater has holes in it where the bear tried to bite me—damn. There’s blood underneath it. Blood that’s coming from tooth marks on my skin. There’s no way that bear was a walker. I would feel sick or my skin would be turning gray like Clem’s did in the barn. Oh, shit. Clem can’t see this. She doesn’t need to know about it. She’s gonna say that it’s just like the barn again except this time I’m the one who’s bit.

You know what? This bite doesn’t look so bad. I think I can hide it. I just have to turn my face into stone and be real tough. That’s when Willy comes running back to me. My face isn’t stone yet.

“You just left me there,” I say.

“I didn’t wanna get eaten by a bear,” he says. He breathes real heavy even though it’s not that far to the school. “You should have run away instead of just standing there and letting him knock you down. What’s that under your hand? Is that blood? Did you get bit?”

“No.”

“You got bit. I know you did. I saw it. What if that was a walker bear? You still have your gun?”

“What do you care? You’re not gonna chase after it. Where’s my knife?”

“I lost it.”

“How did you lose it?”

Willy bends down and tries to take the gun from me. I’m not gonna let him, but my side starts hurting really bad and he takes it from me anyways. He holds it in both hands and aims it at the ground in front of me. He doesn’t even know how to use it.

“I can’t take a chance if you’re bit,” he says.

“Go ahead,” I say. “Clementine will hate your guts for the rest of your life and so will everyone else.”

“Nobody hates you,” says Willy. “Not anymore.”

“That’s ‘cause I’m not Marlon.”

Willy looks back at the school. There’s nobody there that wants to see his ugly face. Clem’s in her room. She wouldn’t wanna talk to him anyways, not with his hands shaking like he has to pee really bad but he doesn’t want to wet his pants. He throws the gun down into the snow and runs back to the school. I pick it up and put it in my waistband ‘cause that’s the only place it’s gonna do anyone any good. I’m done with Willy. He’s not anyone’s family.

I hide the bite under my coat so nobody can see it. I gotta hold my arms against my sides so they don’t hurt so much with my gun stretching my waistband against my skin. When I get back to the school courtyard, Violet’s walking to the dorm with an armful of firewood. She stops when she sees me staring at her.

“You okay, AJ?” she says.

“I’m just…tired from running,” I say.

“Running from what?”

“We were…Willy and I were playing tag instead of doing lookout. You’re not gonna tell Clem, are you?”

“You know better than to take your eyes off the woods,” she says.

She walks up to me and looks at my side. Why does she see  my blood right away but she didn’t see Clem’s until she heard me talking about it?

“Playing tag sounds like Willy,” she says, “but not like you, and I don’t remember the last time you let Willy tell you anything.”

“Yeah, you’re right. We saw a bear and ran away. I fell on a tree branch and scraped myself but I’ll be okay.”

“You scraped yourself on a tree branch through your padded winter coat?”

“I took it off after I got warm from all that running. But then I put it back on again.”

“I suppose I’d ditch mine, too, if a bear were after me. Maybe next time you might want to think about not shooting a fucking gun at him. I had to convince everyone, including Clementine, not to go running off into the woods just because Willy convinced you to help him test one of his bombs.”

Violet raises her eyebrows at me. Why’s she doing that?

“Test one of his bombs?” I say. “Oh, yeah, that’s what we did. It was really dumb. I won’t do it again.”

“Well, I hope Clem believes you,” says Violet. “Too bad you didn’t blow up that bear, though. That much meat would feed us for a long time.”

“I’m gonna go talk to her now.”

“You’ll have to wait a bit. She’s being a sleepyhead as usual. I’m not going to wake her up until dinner. You let her rest for as long as she needs to.”

“I can do that.”

When I get back to our bedroom, Clem’s head isn’t turned away from me anymore. She sleeps for a long time, even straight through dinner. Violet eats some of Clem’s stew so I don’t get hungry again and ask for Clem’s bowl. Violet already licked all of it, so it’s hers. When Clem finally wakes up, her stomach growls. She eats her stew even faster than I ate mine. She doesn’t burp, though.

“Hey, goofball,” she says when she’s done.

“Hey,” I say.

“So you’re okay with ‘goofball’ now? You feeling all right, AJ?”

I hold my arms closer to my sides. I took the gun out of my jeans, but the bear bite still hurts every time I move.

“I guess you can call me a goofball,” I say. “I know my mom gave me my real name, but maybe you can give me one, too.”

“Your mom didn’t name you Alvin Junior.”

“She didn’t? Wait…you did? You never told me that.”

“No, I didn’t name you. My friend Kenny was the one who suggested Alvin Junior. I told him I liked it, so we kept it.”

“So, this Kenny guy…was he smart like you?”

“We used to joke that he was about as dumb as a bag of hammers. He was  really stubborn and hot-headed sometimes, but you could always count on him to have your back. Just like someone else I know.”

“So you’re not mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because…well, Willy and I went to look at a bear out in the woods.” Clem sits up real fast. “But we scared him away.”

Clem is frowning really hard. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her face this mean.

“Alvin Junior, what were you thinking? Did you let Willy talk you into that? You could have been hurt by that bear or worse. What are you hiding in your coat?”

“I’m not hiding anything,” I say.

“Is that why you’re sitting in the shadows away from the fire with your arms held against your waist like you have something in one of your coat pockets? Because I’ve done that before.”

I can’t tell her. It’s gonna make her sad all over again and I don’t wanna have to walk around the school for another three days while she sleeps for a hundred years.

“Alvin Junior?” she says.

“I was talking to Willy about what you said,” I say. “About walkers with super-powers. He thought you were right and that maybe the walkers that run started biting bears and turning them into walker bears. So I went to look at the bear with him to prove him wrong. And he was wrong.”

“Was it worth it?” says Clem.

“I know how to deal with bears, Clem,” I say. “You lie on your stomach and play dead.”

“No, you don’t let bears see you in the first place. You went out looking for that bear because Willy convinced you that it was a good idea. It wasn’t a good idea and you know that. You’re doing lookout with Violet from now on. And you stay away from Willy.”

“Yeah, I was gonna stay away from him anyways.”

“I hope you mean that,” Clem says. “When I was telling you about what walkers might become, I just wanted someone who understands me to listen to me for a while so I don’t have to keep these things bottled up inside. I never could have imagined that you would go off looking for something you said you didn’t believe in with somebody you’ve never listened to before.”

“I’ll listen better. I promise.”

“I don’t want us to turn into monsters while we’re still alive.”

“We’re not going to.”

“And I don’t want the monsters to take what makes us human away from us.”

“If you’re afraid of people becoming monsters before they get bit, why didn’t you just say it like that?”

“Someone once said that only crazy people say exactly what they’re thinking. Crazy people and  children .”

“Clem, I said I’m sorry.”

I move to get up off the bed and maybe give her a hug, but my bite’s not gonna let me do it so I have to sit back down. Clem looks up at the bed above her and closes her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, too,” she says.

Maybe she’s going back to sleep again. I guess I don’t blame her. It’ll give me time to figure out how to hide this bite from her so she doesn’t have to worry about me turning into a monster and giving her nightmares when she isn’t even sleeping.


	7. Clementine

AJ doesn’t want to sleep in my bed that night, even though he’s moaning and shivering, but I don’t have the right to insist after the way I talked to him today. He keeps himself turned away from me, lying on his right side with his head on his pillow at the foot of the bed. Right as Violet’s about to come into the room to check up on me, he wakes up and rolls onto his back. Violet ducks into the hallway and closes the bedroom door without a sound.

“I had a dream,” says AJ.

“About the ranch?” I say.

“No,” he says. “I had to go through a whole bunch of walkers covered in their guts. And there were bears chasing me. I couldn’t move fast or else the walkers would get me. So the bears got me ‘cause I moved too slow. One of them bit me in the side.”

He groans and turns back over.

“It’ll be all right,” I say. “It was just a dream. That bear bite isn’t real. Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in my bed instead?”

AJ doesn’t answer. The bedroom door opens softly. Violet peeks inside. She’s going to be pissy all day tomorrow if I tell her to go away. I wave her in and set the blanket over us as she slides her jeans down. She sets my hand where she needs it and whines at me—actually whines—to get me to stop looking at AJ and start on her. I feel bad about doing this while he’s having nightmares. AJ doesn’t move at all, even when Violet’s hand between my legs starts to make me forget where we are. I don’t stop her.

When we’re done, she takes me into her arms. I manage to finally fall asleep with my head against her collarbone and my legs between hers with a pillow under my hip. She says breathing in the scent of my hair helps her fall asleep. I always tell her I haven’t washed it in ten years. AJ thinks she’s a weirdo. Look who’s talking, goofball.

“Clem.”

“What?” I say. “Who is it?”

I sit up from Violet’s arms. She doesn’t like it when I do that before she’s awake. She’d probably hang on me all day if I let her.

“You need to come look at AJ,” says Ruby. “Right now.”

Violet sits up so fast that I check the door for walkers that aren’t there. She doesn’t even wait for me to put on my leg, just picks me up and starts walking even though I’m a bit too heavy for her scrawny arms. I don’t blame her. I should have known something was going on with AJ last night. I should have told Violet to wait until morning so Ruby could examine him and tell me whether it’s something more than nightmares. I guess I know the answer to that now, don’t I?

“Violet, what if I need to run?” I say.

“I’ll carry you on my back,” she says. “I’ll carry you for-fucking-ever.”

She sets me down and kneels so I can climb onto her back. I tighten my grip around her neck as she stands up with her arms under my legs. She marches down the hallway.

“I love you,” she says over her shoulder.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay?” she says. “What do you mean, okay?”

“I mean, I love you, too, but…”

“But what?”

“But nothing,” I say and kiss the back of her neck.

“Good,” she says.

Violet’s breathing pretty hard when we get to the top of the stairs. AJ’s lying down on Ruby’s couch next to Aasim’s legs with a damp rag on his forehead. His skin looks like ash and his lips are as blue as the river. I fall from Violet’s back onto the floor so hard that I knock the wind out of myself.

“What the fuck, Clem?” Violet says.

I swat her arms away as I crawl to AJ. Aasim doesn’t look any better than AJ does.

“I gave AJ some of the aspirin,” Ruby says, “but I don’t think I can stitch up that wound on his side quite yet. Hard to tell where it came from, exactly.”

“What do you mean?” I say.

I rest the back of my hand on AJ’s forehead. He’s burning up. Violet almost yanks my arm out of its socket. I glare at her. She lets go. I ignore her puppy dog eyes.

“They must have the same fever,” I say. “Otherwise you wouldn’t put them so close to each other, right, Ruby?”

“I put those two on the couch so they’d be as comfortable as anyone can be given the circumstances,” says Ruby. “I honestly don’t know what to make of that bite mark on AJ’s side. Have a look for yourself, Clementine.”

Ruby lifts AJ’s brown-stained sweater: red, gaping teeth marks on his stomach are lined with crusted blood.

“What’s your opinion, Ruby?” I say. “Your professional opinion.”

“I don’t have any training other than what I learned from Ms. Martin,” says Ruby. “But nobody knows exactly what happens to your body when you…”

“When you what?” I say. “Turn?”

I frown at Ruby. To my surprise, she frowns right back at me. Violet’s hand on my shoulder feels like fire.

“I bet his skin looks gray from blood loss,” Violet says. “He’s not turning. We’d know if he were.”

“Well,” says Ruby, “if it wasn’t a walker that bit him, I guess I can’t rightly say how fast or slow he’d turn or whether he’d turn at all.”

“This is AJ we’re talking about,” I say.

“This could be any of us we’re talking about,” Ruby says. “If it were Aasim that had been bitten, I think I might just lose my mind.”

“That can’t be a walker bite,” says Violet. “We at least know it’s from an animal, right?”

“No,” I say, “we don’t. I was bitten by a dog once. The group that found me had a doctor who couldn’t tell the difference, so they locked me in a shed until I killed a walker that broke in there.”

“I wish I had been there,” says Violet. “I would have fucked that walker up. Wait. I know. AJ and Willy told me they scared off a bear in the woods yesterday. That bomb blast must have been AJ’s gun. I’m guessing they pissed him off instead of blowing him up.”

“Clem,” moans AJ. “I’m sorry.”

He coughs and clears his throat. I take his little hand and look into his eyes: yellow and glassy. Not like Lee’s the last time I saw him. There’s no way they look like Lee’s.

“Did you get bit by a bear trying to be brave?” I say. “You could have told me. I wouldn’t have been mad at you. I would have taken you to Ruby to stitch you up right away.”

“I wanted to get us some bear meat,” he says. “Then we’d have food and you’d see that I’m ready to go hunting with Louis and Aasim.”

“Aasim won’t be doing any hunting for a while,” says Ruby.

“Did he bite you?” I say. “The bear?”

“Yeah,” says AJ. “I gave my knife to Willy. He lost it. I don’t think we can cut out part of my stomach.”

“We don’t have to,” I say. “Animals aren’t infected.  You’re not infected.”

“How do we know that?” says AJ. “You said there might be super-walkers some day. What if they bite animals and infect them?”

“Then we’d see walker bears and foxes and coyotes in the woods,” I say. “Have you ever seen one of those?”

“No,” says AJ, “because they can outrun walkers or hide from them or they’re stronger than them. Or they play dead like I did. Like you taught me.”

“Yeah, I did teach you that, didn’t I?”

“I can’t listen to this,” says Violet. “Nobody’s going to die except that fucking bear.”

“Wait, Violet,” I say. “We need you here. I need you.”

“I know you do,” she says. “So you know I’m coming back with that bear’s ass in a sack. That’ll give us a shitload of meat just like AJ wanted.”

I could really use Violet’s arms around me right now but she won’t even look at me. Tears run down my cheeks. Violet kneels down with me and wipes my eyes dry.

“Stay here with us,” I say. “Until he gets better. This is just a fever.”

“Starve a cold, feed a fever,” says Violet. “Only thing I ever learned from my grandma. That, and how to fend for myself all fucking day. Look, Clem, we need food. That bear is it. Louis isn’t going to do shit and Aasim is in no condition to hunt.”

“You could send Omar,” says Ruby.

“No offense,” says Violet, “but he’s a better cook than anything else. Literally anything. I’ll be back, Clem.”

Violet kisses me on the lips and wipes her own cheeks. Are those her tears or mine? Probably mine. Violet wouldn’t ever cry for me.

“Shit,” she says. “Don’t cry, Clem. AJ will be fine. That bear is going to get fucked up, though, and we’re going to eat him.”

I don’t know what to say to her, so I don’t say anything.

“You know I can handle myself,” she says. “And AJ’s as tough as I am. I’m not coming back until we’re smoking that bear’s ass over one of Omar’s fires.”

“What if you don’t come back?” I say.

Violet looks at the floorboards, stands up, then turns to the staircase.

“You deserve better,” she says.

She disappears down the steps before I can say anything. What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

“Ruby?” I say.

“I’m sorry for talking like that, Clementine,” she says. She sits down next to me. “I don’t think AJ’s infected. He just needs to rest while we look for something decent to sew up that bite. Duct tape isn’t going to cut it and string might not hold those big ol’ teeth marks shut.”

“Is that why you didn’t  waste supplies on him? Because you didn’t have strong enough thread?”

“We don’t have enough of anything,” says Ruby. “I didn’t want to make it worse by trying to do a half-assed patch-up job. You’re upset enough as it is.”

“I know,” says Clementine. “Peroxide, thread, a needle. I can do it. I’ve done it before. You don’t have to worry about messing up. Ruby…what did Violet mean by that? I deserve better?”

“Violet’s never thought much of herself,” says Ruby. “Like a lot of us. Always in the way. Never good for anything. Back when I had a temper worse than hers and I would get all worked up about something, she was the one who brought me back down to earth by joking with me. ‘If kids are such a pain in the ass, why do people have so many of them?’ she’d say to me. She was right. Aasim and I are only having one. I can’t imagine any more than that with the way the world is today.”

“That’s all you need, right?” I say. “One? I just need AJ.”

“And Violet,” murmurs AJ. “You need her a lot.”

“Little man,” says Ruby, “don’t tell me you woke up just so you could get jealous.”

“I just wanted to be the one to get that bear meat for us,” he says. “So you know I can hunt.”

“I know you can hunt, AJ,” I say, “but you have to start with the smaller stuff. When Aasim gets better he’ll show you how. Violet’s going to handle that bear for us, okay?”

“Okay,” says AJ and closes his eyes.

“I hope,” I whisper to Ruby.

The sun climbs high up in the sky and there’s still no sign of Violet. The weather is warm enough today that it doesn’t feel like the inside of a freezer up on the second floor without a fire to keep us warm. The hardtack Omar brings us tastes like cardboard-flavored sand which is all right, I guess, because I’m not really hungry.

“I’m thirsty,” says AJ.

I take Ruby’s canteen and put it up to his lips. He swallows three times and turns his face away. Is that how many times Duck swallowed? His mother gave him that water bottle Lee found for her. But it didn’t matter because Duck turned. And they shot him. I heard a gunshot. Lee said they took care of it. Did they? Did  he ? Maybe he was the one who did it and never told me.

I have to stop thinking like this. I lie down on the hard, wooden floor next to the couch and close my eyes. I could rest here for a million years and never fall asleep. Maybe if I stay up all night I’ll be tired. That’s going to take a year when every minute is an hour. When’s the last time I looked at a clock that actually worked? Nick’s watch, probably, and it didn’t do him or me or anyone else a damn bit of good because nobody cares how many seconds there are between now and a gravestone with your name on it.

There’s no way I can watch AJ turn. I’ll never forget his face in the barn when he saw me the way I see him now: gray, bloodless, lifeless. What if he turns at night? I need to be able to see him. The oil lamp. He turns it on for me in the evening to keep my legs warm while we talk. I’ll go get it and bring it up here. When the sun goes down, I’ll let it burn all night long while I stay awake for AJ. I should go strap on my wooden leg anyways. 

I have to scoot myself down the stairs on my butt and palms so I don’t fall down. It’s a lot easier to hop on one leg when the ground isn’t stairs. When I get to my room, I strap on my leg and check the oil lamp—it still has fuel to burn. Even if it goes out during the night, I’ll get some more oil from our supply down in the basement. We keep our flashlight down there for when we really need it.

The oil lamp sputters and goes dark. Guess I’m getting more oil right now. It’s probably better that way. We keep the door from the dormitory to the basement locked at all times so walkers can’t roam through the halls if they do somehow manage to make their way into the basement. That means I have to go out into the courtyard and down the cellar stairs.

I come to the door that leads outside. This is where AJ shot Billy. Probably couldn’t even see him. Who’s waiting for me on the other side? AJ could be lying here on the ground because Willy or Louis or Aasim didn’t know it was him. Maybe I should go check on him—no, I have to do this. It’ll only take a minute.

“Are you all right, Clem?”

Louis is standing out in the courtyard staring at me with his bow in his hand. I don’t even remember opening the door.

“Clementine?” he says. “Hello?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Do you need any help?” he says.

The gate below the lookout tower blows open. Louis picks up an arrow from between his feet and nocks it. He’s about ready to draw back the bowstring when Violet appears covered in walker guts—no, that’s fresh blood. And she’s dragging a heavy, red-soaked sack behind her. She drops it at Louis’s feet like a cat showing its owner the dead mouse it found.

“Bear ass,” she says. “There’s, like, fifty more pounds of that shit back out in the woods where I killed it. Go get Omar so we can start smoking it.”

I can’t keep myself from smiling. I’d kiss her if she didn’t look and smell like shit. I walk out into the courtyard. And then, for no reason whatsoever in the world, Louis draws his bowstring and points the arrow right at my head. What did I do? I’m carrying an oil lamp. That’s it. Instead of punching him in the face like I’d expect her to, Violet just stares at me.

“Violet?” I say.

She doesn’t say anything, just looks past me. I turn around—AJ’s standing there in his brown-stained sweater. His face is as gray as ashes. His breathing is heavy and ragged.

“Shit,” I say.

I back up with my arms spread out to shield AJ.

“Is he bitten?” says Louis. “He looks…he doesn’t look like he’s not bitten.”

“It’s not a walker bite,” I say. “It’s a bear bite. Ruby said so. He’s not turning. He’s not  going to turn. Right, Violet?”

“I mean…” she says. She grabs her arm and looks at the ground. “Nobody could have imagined that Brody would turn.”

“And Clem was the one who put her down,” says Louis.

“He’s fine!” I shout. “He just needs…he needs antibiotics that we don’t have. We’re going to get some as soon as Willy gets his ass down from that lookout tower and brings Ruby out here!”

There’s movement up on the walls. Willy slides down the ladder without using any of the rungs and sprints across the courtyard away from us.

“That’s the wrong way!” I call to him. He disappears into the admin building. I turn to Louis. “Put your fucking bow down. He’s not bitten.”

“Then why does he look like that?” says Louis. “Check his bite.”

I lift AJ’s shirt. The pus oozing from the bite marks is a greenish-gray color that doesn’t look anything like blood. I cover it back up.

“I’ve watched people turn,” I say to Louis. “This isn’t how they look.”

“If he’s not turning, why didn’t Ruby stitch up his wound?” says Louis.

“Because…she’s tired and she needed to sleep. Would you put your fucking bow down? Violet, tell him to put his goddamn bow down.”

“Clem, I…Lou, put your bow down. Just fucking do it.”

“All right,” he says as he lowers his bow. “I just want to let you know that I drew my bow entirely in self-defense. I’m not interested in shooting anyone here, but we all know what we’re supposed do if one of us gets bitten.”

“He’s not bitten!” I shout.

The door behind me slams against the wall. Ruby, Omar, and Willy appear. Ruby looks angrier than I’ve ever seen her.

“He’s not supposed to be out of bed,” she says, “and you’re not supposed to be calling every walker and bandit in a five-mile radius—oh, my. That’s what this is about. I didn’t know AJ had gotten this bad.”

“Is Aasim bitten, too?” says Louis.

“What do you mean, ‘too’?” says Ruby.

“I thought Aasim just had a fever,” says Omar. “A nasty one. Maybe it’s contagious.”

“Dude,” says Louis, “fevers aren’t contagious.”

“No, but stupidity is,” says Violet. “We should be bringing this bear meat back before someone or something else gets to it. AJ’s probably fine.”

“He doesn’t  look fine,” says Louis.

“Did Marlon look ‘fine’?” says Violet.

“Ouch, Violet,” says Louis. “That one hurts.” He throws his bow and arrow down onto the ground. “Happy now? Or would you like my permission to go stomping all over my piano so I can’t play it for you and Clementine?”

“You mean just Clementine,” says Violet.

“Is that what this is about?” says Louis. “Really? I thought we were cool after we escaped from those guys with rifles that wanted to blow our heads off.”

“Whatever,” says Violet.

“I’m cool with AJ,” says Willy. “We escaped that bear out in the woods.”

“You only had to escape it because you went out looking for it,” says Violet. “Unlike the rest of you, I actually did something useful and now there’s an entire bear out there waiting for Omar if Louis can be bothered to shut the fuck up long enough to go and get it for him.”

“Fine,” says Louis. “After you, Queen Violet.”

“Just watch out for super-walkers,” says Willy.

“Willy,” I say, “this is  not the time.”

“What?” he says. “That’s how AJ got bit in the first place. He thought the bear was a walker bear who got bit by super-walkers who can outrun animals.”

“There’s no way he thought that,” says Violet. “That’s just another one of those stories you’re always telling him.”

“No way,” says Willy. “I didn’t tell him that.”

“Who else would tell him the dumbest fucking story in the history of the universe?” says Violet.

I look down at the ground. I let my arms fall to my side.

“I would,” I say.

Violet’s mouth hangs open. I step behind AJ and put my arms around him.

“I told him that story because I was afraid of what might happen to him some day,” I say. “Something I can’t control. Something that would make people think he’s a monster. But he’s not a monster. He’s a little boy. He’s  my little boy. I wanted someone to talk to who would listen to me without telling me I’m stupid. I thought AJ would be that person. That was a mistake. My mistake. I forgot that he’s just a little boy and doesn’t understand any of this no matter how many times he’s forced to act like an adult.”

“I’m sorry, Clem,” Violet murmurs to herself. “You could have talked to me.”

“I don’t think I could have talked to anybody,” I say. “None of you would have believed me. I can see that now. You’d all rather believe that AJ’s turning into a monster. And you can fuck right off if that’s what you think.”

Nobody says anything. Not even Louis.

“All right, then,” I say. “I’ll fuck off. I’m going to stay with AJ in quarantine until he gets better.”

“What’s quarantine?” says Willy.

“It’s where you lock yourself in a room to keep other people from getting sick,” says Ruby. “If that’s really what you want to do, Clementine, I can give you the supplies you need to stitch him up and some aspirin or morphine, whichever one you want.”

“Aspirin,” I say. “Save the morphine for someone who needs it. Leave some firewood in our room and slide some bear meat through the window when it’s done smoking. Board our bedroom door shut.”

“You’re crazy, Clem,” says Louis. “That’s suicide.”

“And if any of the rest of y’all have a death wish,” says Ruby, “I might as well stop giving medical advice. On second thought, I should stop taking my own damn advice. I’m staying upstairs with Aasim until he gets better. If you need something, shout. Don’t come up there. If you don’t hear anything from either of us, you can assume we’re walkers and use us for target practice. Until then, toss us some of that bear meat when it’s done smoking. I won’t be around to help boil river water.”

Ruby walks off in a huff.

“The basement would be more secure for quarantining,” says Omar.

“No way,” says Willy. “That’s where Brody’s ghost lives.”

“Shut the fuck up,” says Violet. “I’m staying with you, Clem.”

“Violet,” says Louis, “I need you to show me and Omar where this bear of yours is. We need to start smoking that meat so it doesn’t get freezer burn.”

“It’s not even that cold,” says Violet. “And you can just follow the blood trail.”

“That’s exactly what animals and walkers are doing right now,” I say. “I want you to take them to the site of the kill and cover up that blood trail as well as you can. You get that bear meat and help Omar cook and smoke all of it so we have enough to eat.”

“If you’re going to die,” says Violet, “I want to be with you.”

She sounds worried. I’ve learned to take that fear in her voice and lock it away somewhere deep down inside my heart. This time, though, there’s no place for it to hide.

“No,” I say. “You deserve better than that after all you’ve been through. Just wait a couple of days and things will be back to normal.”

“You don’t know that,” says Violet.

“So, what,” says Louis, “are you guys making some kind of fucked up death pact? Is this place haunted by an evil curse? Everyone who comes to Ericson’s eventually dies no matter what they do? If that’s the case, I vote we leave this place.”

“Where would we go?” says Omar.

“Exactly,” says Louis. He picks up his bow and arrow from the ground. “I’m sorry, Clem. I never thought things would end this way.”

“They’re not going to,” I say.

“Every time I’ve ever heard someone say that,” says Louis, “it’s always the last thing they’ve ever said.”

Louis walks away through the gate below the lookout tower. Omar follows him with a big sheet of linen, probably for the sack they’ll string up on a pole to carry the bear meat. Willy climbs back up into the lookout tower and waves to them.

“Why is he even up there?” I say. “He hardly ever shouts to warn us and even if he does, nobody is going to be around to hear him. Violet…can you at least stand watch with him?”

“Clem,” she says. “I thought we were going to—”

I kiss her on the lips. She closes her eyes but doesn’t move. When I draw away, she’s standing there like a stone face carved into the side of a cliff.

“Tell me you love me,” she says. “I don’t want your last words to be something shitty I won’t believe.”

“I love you, Violet,” I say.

She opens her eyes, hangs her head, and kicks at the snow with her boot.

“You’re full of shit,” she says, “but I’m going to pretend you’re not.”

She walks to the lookout tower’s ladder, climbs it, and sets her arm around Willy’s shoulder. He looks confused for a moment, but quickly gets to scanning the woods with his binoculars. Violet looks at him over her shoulder without really seeing him. I know who she’s looking at and I know why: maybe it’s not what’s out there in the woods that any of us is going to need to worry about.


	8. Clementine

Three days. That’s how long it’s been since AJ was bitten by that bear. I pace around our bedroom on my wooden leg, striking against the floorboards in time with the memory of the old grandfather clock that used to stand in mom and dad’s room. Its soft, steady ticking is the only thing keeping me from losing my mind while AJ moans and groans in his sleep. He opens his eyes and turns his head to look at me, wincing as he does. I’m at his side so fast that my knee slams against the floor. Fire shoots through my leg, even the part of it that’s not there anymore.

“Clem,” says AJ.

“AJ,” I say. “You’re awake. Finally. Can you hear me?”

I set my hand on his forehead. He’s really burning up. I wipe the sweat from my fingers with my jacket.

“You don’t feel too hot,” I say. “That’s good, right?”

“Can you stop walking around like that?” he croaks. “It hurts my head. I hear it in my dreams.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, “but I can’t just sit here and do nothing. What were you dreaming about?”

“I was in a tent with a bunch of animals,” he says. “People were sitting down and watching us.”

“I think that used to be called a circus,” I say.

“At this…circus…there was a guy with a drum. He would hit it with a stick and the animals would follow him. They were all lined up to come and bite me, one by one. Then, all of a sudden, a bunch of walkers showed up and the tent came down with a big crash. That’s when I woke up.”

“I’ll try not to walk around so much,” I say. “Is there anything else I can do to make you feel better?”

“I don’t feel like I’m getting better. I think I’m getting worse.” He lifts his head up. It comes crashing right back down onto the pillow. “The kind of worse that doesn’t get better.”

I turn my head away for a moment and try to keep my breath under control. If I were wearing my hat, it would be easier to hide my face from AJ. That hat belongs on the dresser, now, along with the old pictures Violet keeps of Minnie and Sophie. I have to force myself to look AJ right in the eyes—those bloodshot, yellowing eyes.

“Ruby’s working on some medicine with the supplies we found,” I say. “It’ll bring your fever down. That’s what this is: a fever. Starve a cold, feed a fever. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

AJ shakes his head. I’m not hungry, either, but he needs to eat something to keep his strength up.

“Here,” I say. I hold a piece of smoked bear meat up to his lips. “Try to eat this.”

He turns his head away.

“I can’t,” he says.

I take our canteen and turn his head back to me.

“Lift your head,” I say. “You have to drink something.”

AJ swallows once, twice, then lies back down. He spits up water all over his shirt. I dry it with my jacket sleeve.

“Can you move closer to the edge of the bed?” I say. “You’re shivering. You need to get warm.”

“I’m on fire and freezing at the same time,” he says. “Can you move the lamp somewhere else? The light hurts my eyes.”

I move the lamp and chair to the foot of the bed where he can’t see them. I hope the chair legs weren’t too loud for him.

“How’s that?” I say.

“It sounds like a rushing waterfall,” he says. “I wish it were slower. I could sleep forever to the sound of that.”

“I’ll be sure to wake you up before forever comes,” I say. “Sweet dreams.”

His eyelids flutter. He winces every now and then. I hum that old song I learned from my mom, the same song that kept AJ calm when we were hiding from walkers in an old trailer home out in the middle of the woods. There was a girl who came to us—her name was Ava. She told me how safe we would be if we went with her. I was dumb enough to believe her. Her group took AJ away from me and sent me off into the night empty-handed.

Give me your hand, kiddo. I’m never leaving you again.

When I get tired of watching him sleep, I walk around the room at a snail’s pace. The moon comes out. Omar passes two bowls of stew through a gap in the boards that take the place of our window’s broken glass. You have to crawl under concrete to get to our window and legless walkers wouldn’t be able to reach this high, so we figure it’s safe enough. Unless they learn to climb.

“Don’t eat me!” AJ says.

He sits up in his bed with his hand on his side. His stomach growls. I take a bowl of stew from the dresser—still warm from the cooking fire—and put a spoonful up to his lips.

“I hate these dreams, Clem,” he says. “I wish they’d go away.”

He swallows the spoonful of stew almost without chewing. He grimaces. His stomach makes a noise.

“I’m hungry,” says AJ, “but I feel like if I eat any more of that I’m gonna do a big, wet dookie in my pants.”

“Bear’s ass stew,” I say. “That’s what Violet calls it.”

AJ almost smiles when he laughs. He winces and sets his hands on his ribs.

“You really think I’d eat a bear’s ass?” he says.

“You won’t know whether you like it until you try it,” I say. “And maybe you could chew it a little bit more this time.”

He takes another spoonful.

“It doesn’t taste like anything,” he says.

“At least it doesn’t taste like ass,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says and lies back down. “I think I’m done. And I don’t wanna eat the rest of it later. Maybe you should eat it so you have enough strength to stand watch over me.”

“Thanks, but I’m good,” I say.

My stomach growls. AJ looks up at me.

“Fine,” I say.

I eat a spoonful of bear meat. It actually does taste like ass. Was AJ lying or did he lose his sense of taste?

“I was fighting my way through a herd of walkers,” says AJ. “In my dream. They just kept coming, so I had to smash their heads in. I was as tall as they were. And then when I thought I was almost through them, I saw you. You were a walker.” I stop mid-bite. “I didn’t wanna kill you, but you were gonna eat me. That’s when I woke up.”

I swallow hard and set the bowl of stew down on the dresser. AJ holds his hands out in front of him. He stares at them for a long time.

“I’m gonna turn into a walker,” he says.

“Alvin Junior, you shut your mouth.” I stand up and stomp on the floor with my wooden leg. “I’ve been with plenty of people who thought they were going to turn and they didn’t.”

“You said the walkers are mute…mutating. I think you’re right. So does Willy. That’s why he ran away from the bear.”

I freeze up. Did he just say what I think he said?

“He left you alone with that bear?”

“I didn’t wanna tell you. I knew you’d be mad at him. I was mad at him, too, but now I’m not. When you know you’re gonna die, you stop thinking. That’s what he did.”

I sit down on the bed next to AJ and take his little arm in both my hands.

“You listen to me, AJ,” I say. “There are no super-walkers. There are no bear walkers. I was wrong. It’s not true. I was scared of losing you and I told you that because I thought it would make me feel better. But it didn’t. It only made me feel worse. And it made  you think about stupid things. Things as stupid as I was. Stupid and scared.”

“Like Willy,” says AJ. “I get it. You don’t have to be scared, though. We can be walkers together like that couple in the train station.”

“Stop talking like that! You have a fever. You’re sick. Maybe you have food poisoning and that’s why you can’t eat. You’re going to get better.”

“I feel like I weigh a whole bunch,” he says, “like my legs and arms are made out of wet sand.”

“If you were going to turn, you would have done it by now. You’ve been lying here for three days.”

“Three days? I can’t tell what’s day or night anymore.”

“I mark every day on that calendar on the wall. Ruby told me to do it to keep track of how long the infection lasts. At this point, we’ve never seen anyone go this long without turning.”

“Maybe I’m the first,” he says.

I shake my head. What can I say to him to make him listen?

“I wanna know about Violet,” he says.

“What about her?” I say.

“Why do you kiss her so much?”

“Because I love her.”

“Then why didn’t you let her come in here and stay with us? You won’t be able to kiss her when you’re a walker.”

I stand up from the bed and shove the dresser against the wall as hard as I can.

“I am not going to turn into a fucking walker and neither are you!”

I grab the dresser with both hands and shove it forward so hard that the drawers don’t have enough time to slide all the way out before they slam themselves shut against the floor. Our bowls of stew dump themselves out into the fire. My baseball hat goes flying over the flames and onto the ring of stones that keep our campfire from burning down the entire fucking room.

“Clem, your hat,” says AJ.

He sits up really fast and reaches for it over the side of the bed. Too fast—he goes right back down to the mattress clutching his side. I kneel down next to him and stroke the sweat from his forehead. I can’t tell whether his bite has gotten any better—it’s just a mess of bloody cuts and fishing line stitches. AJ stares over my shoulder at the fire between our beds.

“Your hat’s gonna burn up,” AJ says. “Rosie wanted you to keep it. That’s why she saved it for you.”

“That’s all in the past,” I say. “Everything that came before this only exists to teach us what we need to do right now. We need to think about the future. We can’t dwell on what was or what might have been.” I pick up my hat and hold it over the fire. “We have to keep moving forward.”

Before I can drop my hat, the bedroom door comes crashing open, splitting apart the boards on the outside wall that kept it nailed shut. Violet’s shoulder hits the floor hard enough to make her grunt. She’s on her feet as fast as she fell and lunges at me, wrapping her arms around mine and wrestling me down onto my bed. She takes my hat with one hand and holds me down against the bed with the other.

“If you don’t want this,” she says, “I’m going to keep it.”

“You can have it,” I say.

She shoves it down on top of my hair. Feels like I never took it off.

“Good,” she says. “I’m going to keep it on your goddamn head.”

“It smells like shit,” I say.

“So I’ll know where you are,” she says. “In the meantime, I’ll learn how to make you a new one.”

“I thought you said baseball sucks.”

“If  you wear a baseball hat, it’s my favorite fucking sport. I was just wrong about it. Just like I’m wrong about ever thinking that AJ would turn into a monster. Just like you’re wrong for thinking the same thing. And don’t try to bullshit me. I hear you talking to yourself when I walk by your room every day. I can’t help but stop and listen to you. You know why? Because you laid Brody to rest before I could ask her to forgive me. Because AJ killed Marlon before he could repent for going crazy. They were the only thing I had that resembled a family until you two came here. And I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to lose either one of you to the same brain cancer that took Brody and Marlon.”

Violet sits me up and shoves the brim of my hat down over my eyes. I take it off my head and set it in her lap. She looks over at the upended dresser.

“My dad used to do that,” she says. “My mom would come home sometimes from working her three jobs to sleep for a couple of hours. My dad would be drunk and want sex from her. She was too tired to do it, so he’d start throwing stuff around until she gave him what he wanted. When I got sent here, it took everything I had to keep myself from tearing these rooms apart. Ruby kept me in check. When I would get mad, she would get even madder. She would go nuclear. I couldn’t compete with her.”

“She seems to have calmed down since then,” I say.

“She wanted to become a nurse, to have kids of her own some day,” says Violet. “She didn’t want the people she cared about to be fucked up just because nobody ever taught her that things aren’t supposed to be that way. AJ sees everything you do. He remembers it. He sees a lot of stuff that no kid should ever have to see, but what he’ll remember more than anything else is what you show him. And I fucking hate my dad, because no matter how many times I remind myself that he stopped drinking and got a job after my mom divorced him, the only thing I remember about him is that he would beat the absolute shit out of my mom every time she came home until she stopped coming home. So you have to ask yourself: what do you want AJ to remember about you?”

“That I took care of him when he was sick,” I say. “That I was there for him when he felt like everything was falling apart.”

Violet takes my hat and tosses it onto AJ’s bed. He picks it up and stares at it.

“You have to be a stone in the middle of the ocean,” says Violet. “No matter how high the waves get, no matter how dark the storm clouds become. Let me stay with you and I’ll be a stone for him so you don’t have to. He shouldn’t have to see you fighting with yourself.”

“I just got angry,” I say. “I can take care of him. I don’t need help.”

“It’s not about needing help. It’s about letting someone you love be there for you even when you don’t need them or want them.”

“Violet, it’s not that I don’t want you. It’s just that—”

“Good,” says Violet. “I’m glad you want me here, then, because I’m staying. Now go shut the door and lock it so walkers don’t come in here and eat our fucking intestines.”

I shut the door and help Violet lift the dresser back up into place. As we’re sliding the drawers shut, she takes the picture book from the top drawer and looks through the old photos she took with Minnie and Sophie.

“Do you miss Minerva?” I say.

“She’s just a memory, now,” says Violet. “No more cameras to capture those moments. That’s what Tenn did with his drawings. He turned everything he was afraid of into something he could share with others.”

“His drawings always seemed happy to me,” I say.

“That’s how he worked through his fear,” says Violet. “He gave it a shape and a name and colored it.”

“I told him I didn’t ever think there would be a world without walkers,” I say. “When AJ asked me the same thing, I said I didn’t know.”

“I bet AJ remembered what you told Tenn,” says Violet. “I know Tenn did. That’s why he would draw in the walkers that ate us. He wanted to believe they would be people again in the next life.”

“But he didn’t really believe that.”

“Not after you told him you didn’t. But maybe you could learn to draw. Take whatever anger you have and give it life. That’s why Ruby wanted to become a nurse. She took everything she was mad about and focused on doing something that would help other people instead of hurting them.”

“I don’t think I’d be a very good artist.”

“Even if you’re shittiest artist in the world, I’ll keep your drawings with me to remind me of you. We’ll find a scrapbook for them. Maybe we could even put them in the dresser with Minnie and Sophie.”

Violet’s right. I never thought she would be the one to tell me this. She gives me the hint of a smile and kisses me, then sits down on AJ’s bed. To my surprise, she takes his head into her lap, sets his pillow under his back, and rests her hand across his shoulders. His eyes close. He breathes steadily through his half-open mouth.

“I’ll stay up with him all night so you can get some sleep,” Violet says.

“What if something happens?” I say.

“I’ll wake you up,” says Violet, “but I’m pretty sure you’re going to get a full night’s rest. Hope your dreams are as sweet as you are, Clementine.”

“Did you really just say that?”

“It’s supposed to be romantic or some shit. Did it work?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It did.”

I kiss her on the lips, then set another kiss on AJ’s forehead. Good night, goofball.

I lie down on my bed and close my eyes. There’s no way I’m going to sleep at all tonight. Might as well try, for Violet’s sake.

“You know, you could dream about us if you wanted to,” she says.

My eyes open on their own.

“What do you mean?” I say.

“You could dream of the three of us at the beach with Brody and Tenn like we talked about when we went fishing. You remember that?”

“Yeah, I do. Sounds like a nice dream.”

“That’s where we’ll go together. In the next life. Maybe you could draw it some time.”

“Maybe I will. If that’s where we’ll be when we’re dead, maybe it won’t be so bad.”

“As long as you’re there,” says Violet. “Good night.”

She takes my old baseball hat from AJ’s hand and sets it on her knee. She runs her hand over the faded blue and white fabric just like mom used to stroke my forehead at night when I couldn’t sleep. Before I know it, my eyes are closed and I’m adrift on a midnight sea beneath the stars.


	9. Clementine

Four days later, a week after AJ was bitten by that bear, he’s able to lift himself out of bed and stand up on his own without any help from me or Violet. His skin is a healthy brown, his lips no longer look like the embers in our bedroom’s little campfire, and his arms and legs, so he tells me, are starting to feel as light as the ropes of his tire swing outside. Even so, he’s not the fastest when it comes to moving around and his breathing still sounds like he’s got something stuck in his throat. It’s good enough to earn him a trip to the basement to help me do a bit of cleaning up while we look for anything that might be useful.

“Guess I’m back to collecting firewood,” Violet says. “I’ll tell the others we were inseparable, bound by fate to a tragic romance that instead had a happy ending.”

“Wow,” I say, “where did you read that?”

“Why do you assume I read it?” she says. “Because I lived in a fucking trailer?”

“No, I mean…”

“I’m just kidding, Clem. I read it in one of my grandma’s old romance novels. Not like I had much else to do when the TV was forcibly unplugged. I’ll tell the others that you and AJ are barfing your brains out together in some kind of fucked up bonding ritual. Oh, and give me five minutes while I go unlock the basement door for you so Lou doesn’t see AJ in the courtyard and lose his shit.”

“Thanks, Violet.”

She kisses me until AJ pulls the photo album out of the top drawer, then drags her feet to the door like she’s got concrete in her boots.

“Are you gonna be in this album, Clem?” AJ says.

“No,” I say. “That’s for old memories. You and I are still alive.”

I take the photo album from him and put it back in the drawer where it belongs.

Down in the basement, our oil lamp is halfway through its fuel supply by the time we’re done sorting and filing three standing shelves full of boxes of mostly junk. Before we start on the fourth shelf, AJ goes to set the lamp down next to a brick wall. I take it from him and set it on the middle shelf so I don’t have to look at Brody’s dried and faded blood stain on the concrete. I wish Marlon had never done that to her. To this day I refuse to use that flashlight down here.

“What’s the point of cleaning all this stuff?” says AJ as he looks through a box of old documents. “Doesn’t that just make it easier for walkers to come through here?”

“Walkers can’t get in here,” I say. “We’re going through everything to see whether we can find anything useful. That’s how Omar found all that flour in that room hidden under the shelves.”

“You mean that trap door but without any traps,” says AJ.

“More like a bomb shelter,” I say.

“What’s that?”

“It’s an underground room where you hide from bombs until they stop going off. People can live in there for years, sometimes, while they wait for the radiation to clear up.”

“Raid…radiation?”

“It’s like a walker bite, except it floats through the air and you can breathe it in.”

“Weird. Are you sure you’re not just making that stuff up?”

“I watched it on TV with my dad when I was a kid. He thought it was real. Fortunately, I don’t think I’ll ever have to find out.”

“Hey guys,” says a voice.

I lift the lamp up: Willy’s standing there fumbling with his fingers.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” says AJ. “I’m not done being sick. I might make  you sick.”

“Yeah, I know,” says Willy. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry for being a chicken when we saw that bear.”

“A chicken?” says AJ. “You were a coward.”

“And he’s sorry for being a coward,” I say. “The best thing to do is to accept his apology so he can go back up into the lookout tower while we look for supplies down here.”

“Yeah, okay, Clem,” says AJ. “I accept your apology, Willy. I just don’t wanna hang out with you anymore.”

“I understand,” says Willy. “But if you change your mind, I’m working on a new kind of bomb. It’s a slingshot bomb. You can launch at it walkers and bears. It’ll blow right through their skulls. Anyways, I gotta go.”

Willy’s footsteps take him up the stairs and through the twin cellar doors that lead out into the courtyard. AJ tosses a stack of yellow paper onto the ground.

“Why does he think I would be interested in something dumb like that?” he says. “Maybe he should set off his bombs down here. That would clean up all this useless junk a lot quicker.”

“Explosions are not the best way to get rid of things you don’t want,” I say. “And besides, these old documents might help our fire burn longer. Or you could use them for your drawings.”

“You’re right,” says AJ. “Maybe some of this junk could be useful after all.”

When the sun goes down, we each take a box of paper back to our bedroom and use it to make the fire nice and toasty. AJ stays up for a while drawing a picture of himself shooting that bear. When he’s done, I fall asleep right away and dream about drifting slowly down a river in a gently rocking boat until a rope yanks me onto shore and a hand shakes my shoulder.

“Clem,” says AJ. “Wake up.”

“What?” I say. “Did I sleep through breakfast? What’s with the sad face? Don’t tell me you’re still sick. You were moving around pretty good by the end of the day yesterday.”

“Some of the trees out in the woods are on fire,” he says.

“That’s it?” I say. “It’s winter. We have enough problems getting a fire started in the first place. It’ll burn itself out…unless…was it bandits? Those guys from way up north in Maryland?”

“No,” he says. He looks down at the floor. “It wasn’t bandits.”

“How do you know?”

“Everyone else is outside looking around. If there were bandits, they would have seen them. I think they need you to come out there and tell them what to do since you’re their leader.”

I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. My stump throbs with icy cold. All this talk of fire and I’m freezing my ass off. Either the lamp on the dresser is out of oil or AJ forgot to collect wood for our little stone-ringed campfire on the floor. Pretty sure I’m looking at embers right now, so I’m guessing AJ forgot he wasn’t sick anymore.

“How many trees are on fire, exactly?” I say. “I might go out there to warm up since you couldn’t be bothered to start a fire in our room.”

AJ’s eyes go wide.

“I’m sorry, Clem,” he says. “I was just happy about feeling good again. I think it’s more than a couple of trees. That’s why you should go out there.” I take my crutches from where they lean against the wall. “And maybe you should strap on your wooden leg in case you have to run.”

“Run from what? The school’s walls are made of stone. Fire needs fuel to burn. You can get us some firewood on the way back after I tell everyone to keep an eye on the woods for anyone dumb enough to walk into a forest fire.”

I swing myself on my crutches through our bedroom door and down the hall. Sunlight peeks in through cracks in the left wall where we stuffed that big hole full of wooden beams and boards. At the end of the hallway, the door leading down to the basement stands half-open. AJ runs ahead of me and closes it.

“You know better than that,” I say. “You’re not sick anymore. You need to do better.”

“I will,” he says and opens the door to the courtyard for me.

Outside, Aasim stands behind Ruby with his arms around her double flannel shirts. Rosie paces around whimpering and sniffing at the air. Smells like smoke, all right. Willy stands up in the lookout tower scanning the trees while Omar peers through the bars of the gate below the platform. Louis lets an arrow fly into the wooden planks that reinforce the main gates—we found chains and a padlock to keep them shut after we got raided. Violet’s glaring at the back of Louis’s long-tailed coat with her meat cleaver in her right hand and my gun in the front of her jeans.

“You don’t need to be doing target practice,” she says. “That fire will take care of any walkers. And us if we don’t do something about it.”

“Violet, Violet, Violet,” says Louis. He pulls his arrow out of the wood. “It’s the middle of winter. Where is that fire going to go? It needs fuel to burn. These stone walls will keep that fire and any walkers out just fine.”

He lets another arrow fly right into the middle of a wooden reinforcing beam.

“At least your aim is improving,” I say.

“Clem,” says Violet.

She drops her meat cleaver and nearly knocks me over with a hug. AJ closes the door to the dorm and joins us.

“AJ’s looking a lot better,” says Ruby. “Glad to see you out and about.”

Violet looks down at my crutches.

“Where’s your leg?” she says. “I mean, your wooden one.”

“I didn’t think I needed it,” I say. “AJ woke me up for a fire that sounds like it’s going to burn itself out.”

“Thank you, Clem,” says Louis as he retrieves his arrow. “I’m glad someone else recognizes that we don’t always need to assume the worst about every little thing that happens.”

“Look who’s fucking talking, Robin Hood,” says Violet. “You didn’t say the same about AJ a week ago.”

“Violet,” I say, “that’s in the past now. Let’s move on.”

“Fine,” she says.

“So we’re not going to do anything about the trees?” says Omar. “That’s a whole lot of them on fire right now. If they burn down it’s going to provide us with less cover. I don’t really want anyone finding this place.”

“Willy’s ‘flaming walkers’ might have a field day assaulting the school,” says Louis. Willy looks down at him with a frown. “Personally, I think we’re making much ado about nothing.”

A massive explosion somewhere out in the woods nearly drops me to the ground. Violet keeps me upright by holding me tight. Rosie starts barking and won’t stop.

“Look!” says Omar and points to the sky behind us.

Huge, billowing flames burn high above the dormitory’s roof. They must be as tall as the bell tower. Maybe even taller.

“Holy shit,” says Willy.

He’s down on the ground holding a weird-looking object in his hands, probably some kind of bomb. Everyone turns to look at him. He hides whatever it is behind his back.

“It wasn’t me!” he says.

“It sounded like it came from the greenhouse behind the dormitory,” says Violet. “I thought you took all the propane out of there, Willy.”

“I did,” he says. “Something must have triggered one of the traps in there. Maybe it was an animal.”

“Traps?” says Omar.

“Your traps shoot fire into the air?” says Louis.

“You put fucking traps in the greenhouse?” says Violet. “Were you going to tell us about this or were you just going to let us find out for ourselves when we got blown to smithereens?”

“They’re marked with bright yellow labels out in the open and they smell like animal guts,” says Willy. “You’d have to be kinda dumb to set one off.”

“Dumb like a walker,” says Violet.

“How would walkers even get in here?” says Aasim.

“The same way they get into everything,” says Violet.

“I thought y’all patched up all the holes in the walls,” says Ruby.

“Yeah,” says Violet, “with old wooden beams and boards from the rubble by the graveyard. The kind of wood that burns up nice and fast if someone were to, oh, I don’t know, start a fucking fire? So maybe that shit burned to a crisp and let walkers in here.”

“Really?” says Louis. “Do we have to be paranoid about this?”

“Yeah, we do,” says Violet. “That’s what’s kept us alive for this long.”

“What do you think, Clem?” says Omar. “I mean, you’re supposed to be our leader. What do you think we should do?”

I sigh and look down at my crutches. I thought I was going to be back in bed by now.

“Search the buildings for walkers,” I say. “Willy, I need you to disarm all of your traps.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” he says. “I might blow myself up. And there’s a lot of them.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” mutters Violet.

“How many is ‘a lot’?” I say. “Are they just in the unused buildings behind the dorm?”

The admin building answers my question by sending everyone to the ground. Wooden shards spray from gaping holes in stacks of wooden chairs and old lecterns and oversized flower pots they used to house willow saplings until the kids decided to “transplant” the trees and roll the pots down the steps to see who could go the furthest. Violet is on top of me, hauling me up to my feet with that look in her eyes that I’ve only ever seen when she thinks I’m in danger. A flaming piece of wood comes hurtling right toward me. Violet shoves me aside and narrowly avoids being hit herself. Willy tosses handfuls of snow onto the fiery chunk of wood but it doesn’t do him much good.

“What the hell, Willy?” says Violet. “You could have gotten one of us killed.”

“Hey, you can’t just assume that was me,” says Willy. Violet frowns at him. “Okay, it was me. I couldn’t stop thinking about those bandits you met up north. I don’t wanna get raided again. They killed Mitch last time. I can’t let that happen again.”

“Wait,” says Violet. “If your bombs started a fire in the greenhouse…that means  you must have started the fire out in the woods.”

Willy rubs the back of his neck with his hand. AJ won’t look at me.

“We were out testing slingshot bombs,” AJ says. “We thought they would make stuff explode, but they set it on fire instead. We didn’t know how to put it out. Snow doesn’t work, the river’s too far away, and the ground is too hard to dig up.”

“So what’s setting off those bombs, then?” says Louis. “Are we under attack by the hibernating animal kingdom?”

“I think it’s those bandits testing our defenses with a walker attack,” says Willy. “Like the same way that guy with the weird walker mask brought walkers to the raider boat to help us.”

“Willy,” says Violet, “you seriously need to shut the fuck up with those stories of yours.”

“Sorry to say, Violet, we weren’t the first ones to do it,” I say. “I’ve been on the other end of it before, but that was a coordinated attack carried out by a highly organized group. I don’t think those bandits way up north are that pissed off at us that they’d scout for our location this far south for weeks on end. I’m guessing some sleeping walkers were drawn to the warmth of our homemade campfire and managed to make their way into the school. As long as we keep doors between them and ourselves, we should be able to handle them.”

“Unless they’ve learned to open doors,” says Louis.

Not far from where we stand, the cellar doors start banging against the thin metal latch that holds them shut. Over in the dormitory, the entrance door shakes like someone’s pounding on it. Louis nocks an arrow. Violet takes out my gun. AJ picks up her meat cleaver.

“What do we do?” says Ruby. “I don’t think the administration building is safe.”

“We could make a break for the bell tower,” says Aasim.

“I’m standing my ground,” says Violet. “Lou, you should go flank them through the admin building.”

“By myself? Thanks, but no thanks.”

A thin stick of wood pokes through the gap between the cellar doors and slides the metal latch open. The twin doors slam open: walkers, three of them, shamble up the steps and out into the courtyard.

“When did they learn to do that?” says Willy.

“Shut up,” hisses Violet.

Louis drops each of them with an arrow to the head. Violet keeps her gun trained on the stairway that leads down to the basement. It was only a couple of walkers and Violet’s smart enough to keep it that way by holding her fire so her gunshots don’t wake up more of them and send them right to our front door.

“No way,” Willy whispers.

Without warning, the door to the dorm opens. There’s a lot more than three this time. One of the walkers lets out a gurgling cry and starts running at full blast right toward us. Louis puts an arrow in the side of its skull but it keeps running. It’s almost on top of him when Violet drops it with a headshot from her gun. Groaning from the dorm lets us know where the rest of them are. Of course there had to more of them. There are always more. And some of them are…on fire?

“Shouldn’t they be falling over if they’re on fire?” says AJ. “Like they did in the cave.”

“I think we need to retreat to the woods,” says Louis. “More room to maneuver.”

“There’s no fucking way I’m leaving this place again,” says Violet. “This is our home. We have to fight for it.”

“If they’re on fire that means it’s spreading,” says Ruby. “What happens if the medical supplies burn up?”

“And the food,” says Omar. “That bear meat is almost gone but it’s all we have. And the hardtack.”

“Arrows didn’t work on that last one,” says Violet. “I’m gonna have to start firing. We need to make a decision.  Now , Clementine.”

“Aasim and Omar,” I say, “be ready to run into the dorm and grab as much as you can. Violet and Louis, take them down.”

Violet and Louis open up on the walkers with bullets and arrows. They take out eight of them, including three that are on fire. The doors to the admin building start banging against the door frame.

“If they know how to open doors, it’s only a matter of time before they’re out here,” says Violet.

“Let’s go, Omar,” says Aasim.

He runs through the dead walkers to the dorm. Omar isn’t far behind him.

“I’m gonna get your leg,” says AJ. He drops Violet’s meat cleaver. “You need it.”

“I’ll cover him,” says Violet.

“AJ, wait!” I say.

It’s too late. He’s already inside the dormitory. Violet stands in the doorway with her gun pointed down the hall. I should have listened to him and strapped my fucking leg on before I came out here. An earth-quaking explosion sends me to the ground and blows open the doors of the administration building. Walkers are inside lying down on the floor. It’s only a matter of time before they stand up and come shambling or running out here. Violet hauls herself to her feet and rushes out to join Louis in taking aim at them.

“I think maybe heading for the woods is a good idea,” says Ruby, “just as soon as Aasim and the others get back here.”

“Clem?” says Violet. “I don’t know if I have enough bullets. What do we do?”

We can fight off this many, but this isn’t all of them. It’s probably an entire fucking herd because that’s the way things always have to be. Groups break apart, people die, and homes stop being homes no matter how hard you work to keep them.

“We have to run and hope for the best,” I say. “Maybe the bomb traps will bring the buildings down on top of them.”

“I can set off the big one,” says Willy. “It’s on a timer, like the one we used on the boat.”

“No way,” says Violet. “It’s too dangerous.”

“You’re not my mom,” says Willy.

“Nobody’s your fucking mom,” says Violet. “Clem, tell him to stay put while we cover the others.”

“You let AJ go in there,” says Willy. “I wanna help the group. I know how to avoid walkers.”

“We have to end this,” I say. “Otherwise we might never be able to come back here.”

“Clem,” says Violet. “That’s insane.”

“Get ready to fire,” I say. I kneel down and set my hands on Willy’s shoulders. “I know you’re brave, just like AJ. This time, when you see that bear, you’re not going to run away. Right?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m gonna blow it up.”

“That’s right.” I stand up. “Violet, Louis, cover him. Go, Willy!”

Violet and Louis open fire on the walkers coming from the admin building. Willy runs off into the dormitory like his ass is on fire. One of the walkers chases him all the way to the door. Violet pops him in the back with a bullet, drawing his attention. A flaming piece of wood from the dormitory overhang falls down on top of him, sending him to the ground. He doesn’t stay down long, though: he shrugs off the chunks of wood and stands up—and now he’s on fire. Louis hits him in the knee with an arrow, slowing him down long enough for Violet to take aim. Her gun clicks. Is she out of bullets already? 

“Fuck,” she says. “I think it’s jammed.”

The walker starts running toward us. Violet picks up her meat cleaver and throws it at the walker, hitting it in the chest. She takes out her gun’s magazine and puts it back in. Our fiery friend is almost on top of her.

“Hey, asshole!” I shout.

He stops right before he reaches Violet and turns to look at me with his burning, sulfur-ringed eyes. Violet takes aim and shoots him right in the head. He falls to his knees in front of me before I can step back. Violet screams louder than I’ve ever heard and kicks the walker down to the ground. She ignores the flames that wreath his body and stomps on his chest with her boot until I pull her away.

“They’re still coming!” I shout at her. “We have to hold them off!”

From somewhere inside the administration building comes a massive explosion. The window shutters overlooking the balcony outside the headmaster’s office splinter into fragments and shower the snow below with wooden shards. Thick, gray smoke blows through the opening and darkens the morning sky.

“Clem,” says Louis, “we have to go and help them. We can’t stay out here.”

Right as I’m about to run for the dorm on my shitty little crutches, AJ, Aasim, and Omar come sprinting out of the building. AJ has my wooden leg. Aasim and Omar are right behind him with a big linen sack and the oil lamp from our bedroom. Violet helps me strap on my wooden leg.

“We have to go,” says Ruby as she backs toward the gate. “There’s too many of them and I don’t think the buildings are going to hold much longer.”

“Where’s Willy?” says AJ.

“He’s still in there,” I say. “We can’t leave him.”

“You were the one who told him to go in there,” says Louis.

“You did?” says AJ.

“We don’t have time for this,” says Violet. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

I follow the others through the metal gate that spells out the name of the last guy who abandoned this place. I grab the frame and take one last look at the burning buildings, hoping to see Willy running toward us through all those walkers. Instead, I spot a lone figure up on the balcony outside the headmaster’s office. That’s Willy, all right, holding something in his hands, that same object he had up in the lookout tower. He waves to me—what is he doing?—and sets his hand down on top of something that looks like a…detonator?

Willy. That is not what I told you to do.

The entire administration building goes up in explosive flames that send debris and fragments hurtling into the mass of walkers in the courtyard, crushing them and setting them on fire. Violet whips me around and marches me to where AJ stands with his mouth half-open. He looks up at me with questioning eyes.

Yeah, AJ. I told him to do that.

Violet squeezes my arm and helps me run fast enough to keep up with the others. When AJ woke me up this morning and told me the trees were on fire, I never could have imagined that the entire school would burn to the ground. If Violet hadn’t broken our quarantine to calm me down, I might have been the one who started this fire when I shoved that dresser over. I almost feel like crying, but AJ’s already doing it for me and isn’t doing a very good job of hiding it. You were mad at Willy for running away and he thought he had to prove himself to us. It’s not your fault, AJ. I’m the one who’s to blame. So much so that I have to kill this desire inside me to take you up in my arms and wipe away your tears. I’m not your mother. No mother would do this. Any mother would be better than I ever was, even a mother who’s dead.


	10. AJ

Clem’s too busy running to look at me much. Maybe it’s because she’s still worried about the huge forest fire that fills up half the sky with smoke. When we stop running to catch our breath, I finally get a good look into her eyes. They’re this weird kind of empty, like there was a fire inside them that’s gone out. Like when she falls asleep before I do and I have to turn off the lamp for her.

“Clem, are you mad at me?” I ask her.

“Yeah, AJ, I am,” she says. “I’m mad at a lot of things right now.”

I knew she was gonna say that. It still hurts.

“Maybe it doesn’t help any,” I say, “but I’m sorry.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t help. I’m as sorry as you are and it doesn’t do me a damn bit of good. I’m sorry that I ever thought you could be a normal kid who makes normal friends who do the things normal people do in the middle of winter.”

“Like what?”

“Like go sledding down hills, make snowmen, drink hot chocolate around a cozy fireplace. Instead, we have to run from fucking walkers who are on fire and want to roast us like marshmallows.”

Clem’s using swears, so I know she’s not lying about being mad like she does sometimes when she wants me to stop doing something. Maybe she’s not mad, though.

“Are you sad because Willy went in there and didn’t come back out?” I say.

“Aren’t you?” she says.

“Why should he be?” says Violet. She’s breathing real heavy with her hands on her knees. “You told him to go up there. He did. And now he’s gone. We can’t bring him back. It’s in the past. Like you always say: we need to keep moving forward.”

“Yeah,” says Louis. “Keep moving forward until you forget every shitty thing you ever said or did.”

“Like you’re one to talk,” says Violet.

“Fighting isn’t going to keep us warm,” says Aasim. He’s got one arm around Ruby. “Let’s find a place to hide from those walkers and make a fire. I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

“The fishing shack,” says Omar. “It’s got a fireplace and kindling.”

“You sure that’s not too close?” says Ruby. “If some of those walkers can run, they might even be catching up to us right now.”

“What else is there?” says Louis. “The train station? I’d rather not have to hide in that little room beneath the floor and find another grenade waiting for us. Besides, that was walker central not too long ago and these dumbasses are apparently smart enough to open doors, now. Some of them might even remember that they once found food at that train station.”

Clem stumbles over a branch and falls into the snow. Violet bends down to help her up before I can even think about it. She wipes the snow from Clem’s face. Clem’s lips are turning blue. Violet stares at Clem like she’s looking for something and can’t find it.

“Did that explosion break one of your bones?” says Violet. “Does it feel like you’re bleeding inside?”

“I’m fine,” Clem says. “Just a little cold, that’s all.”

I kneel down next to Clem so I can see inside her eyes. Still nothing there.

“You look strange,” I say.

“Are you feeling all right?” says Violet.

She shakes the snow off Clem’s jacket. Clem starts shivering. Violet hugs her really tight and tries to stand up with her. Clem is stuck to the ground.

“Goddamn it,” says Violet. “We don’t have time for this. Ruby, Aasim, Omar, you guys go on ahead to the fishing shack and get the fireplace going. AJ, do you still have that igniter?”

She means that metal thing that Willy used to light the slingshot bombs that burned everything down. He said he gave it to me for safe key—safekeeping, but I know it’s because he didn’t want to get caught with it. It doesn’t matter, now. I give it to Omar. Ruby takes Aasim’s arm from her shoulder and puts her fingers between his.

“Let’s go, papa,” she says. “Don’t want our little baby to freeze her buns off out here in the snow.”

Clem stands up like a bolt of lightning and starts walking almost too fast for her crutches even though she’s wearing her wooden leg. Me and Violet and Louis have to run to catch up with her.

“We’ll make sure your baby makes it through this winter,” says Clem, “even if someone else’s kids aren’t so lucky.”

“That’s pretty dark,” Louis says over his shoulder.

“What isn’t these days?” says Clem.

It seems like it takes forever to get to the fishing shack. The snow rises up to our knees and Violet has to help Clem push her way through it. I tell her we can walk on the river ‘cause it’s frozen and she starts shivering even harder like she just went for a swim in the icy water. We finally get inside the big mess of wooden boards everyone calls the fishing shack. We sit real close to the fireplace while Aasim uses the oil lamp and Omar uses the igniter to try to make the frozen wood logs burn. Louis closes the door and locks it.

“Turning the doorknob won’t help them this time,” he says. “If they want to get in here, they’ll have to beat the door down just like everyone else.”

“You mean beat you down,” says Violet, “since you’re on door duty.”

“Such violent words, Violet,” says Louis.

“You’re not helping anyone when you talk like that,” says Ruby. “What  would help us is a fire.”

“I’m trying,” says Aasim. “This wood is stubborn.”

“Hurry up, Omar,” says Clem. “I’m freezing.”

“We need to make sure the fire burns nice and low so we aren’t seen,” says Omar.

“Just light the damn fire,” says Violet. “I can kill ten or fifteen of them before I run out of bullets.”

“Yeah,” says Louis, “if those flaming walkers don’t turn you into a fireplace first.”

Aasim and Omar get the fire going pretty good when they find the banner from the party we threw before we attacked the raiders. We wanted to forget all about that, so we left it here in the fireplace. Me and Omar and Aasim take turns using fishing spears to keep the pile of wood burning. Clem sits really close to the fire next to Ruby but she’s still shivering.

“How can you still be cold?” I ask her.

“I fell into a freezing river once,” she says, “not long after you were born. I went in after a guy in our group. His name was Luke. He was really nice. Even you would have liked him, Violet.”

“You must have liked him if you dove into a freezing river for him,” she says.

“What happened to him?” I say.

“I tried to grab his hand, but walkers pulled him down to the bottom of the river,” says Clem. “This woman who liked him—her name was Bonnie—pulled me out of the water and brought me into a house where we waited forever for the others to start a fire. I’ve never been colder in my life.” She looks at me. Her eyes aren’t so empty, now. “I keep remembering things I should have forgotten, but every time I see your face, I think of that winter when you were born and almost didn’t make it. We were going to a place called Wellington where I thought we would be safe. The road there was so cold and I got so hungry that I almost thought about leaving you behind.”

“But you didn’t,” I say, “because you’re not a murderer. So you don’t have to atone anything.”

“I just wanted you to have a friend,” says Clem. She sets her forehead against her bent knees. “Tennessee, now Willy. Who else?”

“Everybody,” I say. “The first time you came out of your room after you lost your foot, you told me you had no idea what you were doing, that you were making it up. That’s because you have to. You always have to be thinking. You do something the same way every time, you might die because you weren’t thinking. So it doesn’t matter whether you know what you’re supposed to do. You do the right thing, someone dies. You do the wrong thing, someone dies. In the end, you do what you think is best and you hope that you’re not the one who dies because of it. So maybe Willy knew exactly what he was doing. We shouldn’t let that be for nothing.”

“Damn, dude,” says Louis. “You sound like my uncle. He was a university professor.”

“What you’re saying makes sense, AJ,” says Clem. “I just wish it made me feel better.”

All of a sudden there’s a really loud sound up on the roof.

“Walkers didn’t learn to climb trees, did they?” I say.

“Probably a tree branch,” says Omar. “I’ll take a look through the window.”

“Just be quick,” says Louis. “Don’t let yourself be seen.”

Omar squints through the window. He steps away with big eyes.

“Guys?” he says. “I think the roof might be on fire.”

As soon as he says it, one of the boards above us breaks. It doesn’t fall down, but smoke comes through the gaps. Loud thumping sounds make the walls next to Omar shake. He jumps back from the window like he stepped on a snake. Two hands bang against the glass. They look like they’re on fire.

“How the fuck did walkers find us so fast?” Violet whispers.

“It doesn’t matter,” Clem says. She stands up. “They’re here. We need to keep running.”

“What, from walkers who run as fast as we do  and they’re on fire?” says Louis. “And what if there are more of them than we have ammunition for?”

It’s getting so hot in here that I’m starting to sweat. I want to take my coat off but Clem won’t let me.

“Zip it up tight and be ready to run,” she says.

“Is that the plan?” says Aasim. “Run from walkers that not even fire can kill?”

“Maybe if you had brought your hunting bow we’d stand a better chance,” says Violet. “Louis and I will distract them while you run like hell.”

“Once again I’ve been volunteered,” says Louis. “I’ll count, you get the door.”

Hands made of fire break through the window above the dirty mattress where Willy used to take a nap when he was pretending to fish. The window is too small for the walkers to get through, but they can still reach their hands and arms inside and set the walls on fire.

“On the count of three,” says Violet, “all of you run west across the river to the train station. We’ll meet you there.”

“Violet…” says Clem.

The insides of the shack are on fire. The flames are spreading across the ceiling. The boards sound like they’re gonna break.

“Get your ass to the train station,” Violet says. “I can run a hell of a lot faster than you can. You’d better be there when I show up.”

“Shit,” says Clem. She shakes her head, then stands up straight. “All right, everyone. Be ready to run without stopping or looking back.”

“You got this,” says Violet.

“I love you,” says Clem.

“I love you, too, Clementine. Ready?”

Before anyone can say anything, Violet starts counting.

“One.”

“Fuck,” says Aasim.

“Language,” says Ruby.

“Two.”

Louis nocks an arrow. Clem holds her crutches tight.

“Three.”

Violet slams the door open and runs screaming toward the walkers. The whole shack is on fire, not just the ceiling. And there are  a lot of walkers around it. Violet fires Clem’s gun into them. I can’t tell whether she’s taking any of them down. Louis yells at me to run faster, so I do. Clem has a hard time keeping up with us. Louis puts his bow string around his neck and leaves Violet so he can help Clementine get out of there. I look back one more time, but all I see is everything on fire. I don’t know where Violet is or if she even made it out.

We keep running until we get to the river. Clem won’t set foot on it until Louis shows her that it’s narrow enough to cross in ten steps. She won’t fall through. After that, we walk really fast until we finally reach the train station. We head inside that room behind the ticket counter where that guy with yellow teeth and a big bald spot on his forehead tried to rob us. I don’t wanna remember it, but that’s the first thing I think of. Louis closes the door but doesn’t lock it so Violet can still get in. Or walkers.

For a long time, all I hear is breathing. We’re all warm and out of breath from moving so much. After that, things start to get cold again. Aasim sets the lamp in the middle of everyone and turns it on. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. I sit down in Clem’s lap. I don’t know why. She puts her arms around me. She’s shaking. I wonder if it’s because she’s crying again. I’m not gonna look at her. I just set my head against her shoulder.

“I thought I would stop feeling these things,” she says. “It never gets any easier, even after all this time.”

“Violet’s coming back, Clem,” says Louis.

“People have come back before,” says Clem. “That doesn’t mean they stick around. My friend Kenny came back. He took us to Wellington but they wouldn’t let him in. We never saw him again. Even if Violet does come back, she won’t stay. Everyone has to leave some time.”

“I’m here,” I say.

“You haven’t been alive long enough.”

“Holy shit, Clem,” says Aasim. “He’s just a kid.”

“Compared to who?” says Clem.

Right then, Violet blows through the door and falls onto the floor. Her jacket and pants have a bunch of black spots on them that smell like smoke. She grunts and groans and makes a whole lot of weird noises. Louis jumps up and locks the door.

“Those are some serious burns,” says Ruby. “I don’t have medical supplies for those.”

Clem dumps me off her lap so she can hug Violet and kiss her all over her gross, dirty face. It’s covered with black gunk that gets on Clem’s lips but she doesn’t even care.

“Told you I’d come back,” says Violet.

“Yeah, you did,” says Clem. “Usually people don’t. And when they do—”

“I told you we’re going to be together forever,” says Violet. “If you die, I’m following you.”

“Me too,” I say.

“No, AJ,” says Clem. “You’re not sick anymore. We don’t have to talk like that.”

“We won’t have to talk like that ever again if you stop trying to be a hero all the time,” says Violet.

“What does that mean?” says Clem.

“You keep doing all these things and making decisions by yourself,” says Violet.

“What, like running at walkers screaming my lungs out?” says Clem.

“I did it so you wouldn’t feel like you had to,” says Violet. “Like when you went off to find supplies and you got ambushed. Like when you decided to stay in a room with AJ and shut me out so you could be alone with your anger. AJ’s not the only one who needs you. I do, too. So do the others. From now on, I don’t want you making decisions like that for yourself.”

“What about me?” I say. “Clem told me I could decide when to shoot and when not to. And when I had to shoot Tenn, you didn’t get eaten by walkers. Now you’re telling Clem she can’t make any decisions. And I’m supposed to listen to her. So, what, we’re supposed to listen to you, now?”

Clem lets Violet go and sits down next to her.

“AJ’s right, Violet,” Clem says. “We’ve been doing this for a long time. I don’t know what you did inside the school’s walls before we came, but AJ and I have been through a lot on the road. We trust each other.”

“And you don’t trust me?” says Violet. “I just put my ass on the line for you. I kept you from burning down your fucking bedroom. I stayed with you when some of the others thought AJ was turning. I hope that means something to you.”

“It does, Violet. I just—”

“You just what?”

“Violet,” I say. “Before you came back, Clem was talking about how everyone leaves. She said even if you came back, you’d have to leave again like her friend Kenny.”

Violet sits up straight. She looks Clem right in the eyes.

“Did he leave you or did you leave him?” she says.

“I…he couldn’t stay with us in Wellington. The group wouldn’t take him. He told us we’d be safe there. And we were, for a while. Then things…”

“…went to shit like they always do,” says Violet. “I’m not leaving you. Ever. You can’t make me. Ruby and Aasim are going to have a baby together. They’re not leaving each other. I mean, you two are practically married, right?”

Aasim looks at Violet like she just walked up on him while he was doing his dookies in the river. He turns to Ruby. Ruby smiles at him and raises her eyebrows.

“Does that even mean anything anymore?” says Aasim. “Marriage?”

Ruby smacks him on the shoulder.

“It does if you say it does,” says Violet.

“We’re freezing our butts off with no food, potentially surrounded by walkers and this is the topic of conversation,” says Louis.

“Yeah, so we can forget about all this bullshit for, like, ten minutes,” says Violet.

“By replacing it with a different kind of bullshit?” says Louis.

“Shut up, Lou,” says Violet.

I think I know what Violet’s talking about. She thinks I’m Clem’s baby.

“I’m not a baby,” I say. “I’m an adult. Almost. So Clem doesn’t need anyone to be married to.”

“Do you remember marriage, Clementine?” says Violet.

I don’t like the way Violet is looking at Clem. She needs to stop doing that.

“Yeah,” says Clem. “It’s what parents do. But I’m with Aasim on that one. There are a lot of things that don’t really have a place in this world these days. Maybe marriage is one of them. Whether it does or not, I don’t want to dwell on the past. The old world is gone. We have to live in the present. That’s how we stay safe. That’s how we stay alive.”

“So you can pretend,” says Violet. She moves so close to Clem that she’s almost sitting in her lap. “You can think of me like your mom and dad thought of each other.”

“Do we really need to do this right now?” says Aasim.

“Shut up, sugar,” says Ruby. “Wish I had some popcorn.”

“I don’t know, Violet,” I say. “We don’t have any kids.”

“We don’t have to,” says Violet. She looks at me. I frown back at her. “It would mean a lot to me to know that you care about me more than anyone or anything else in the world.”

Clem looks at the lamp in the middle of our circle for a long time. Violet sets her hand on Clem’s knee above her wooden leg. I chopped it off even after Clem told me not to, so I guess I understand what Violet means about Clem not making decisions for herself. But why does Violet want to be the one who does it for her? Why do they gotta be ‘married’ like parents if they don’t have any kids? I’m not Violet’s kid. Maybe Clem’s. Maybe. But not Violet’s.

“Aasim?” says Clem.

“What?” says Aasim.

“What do you think?”

“Uh…I don’t know? With the way things are, I guess the best thing to do is to take things one day at a time.”

“Which is why if you’re going to make a statement,” says Ruby, “you should do it today. There might not be a tomorrow.”

Clem turns to me. She looks sad again. Maybe she’s thinking about how the school is on fire. It’s probably burned down to the ground by now.

“It’s okay,” I say. “You can care about Violet more than anyone. I know I messed up by starting that fire with Willy.”

“AJ,” she says, “that’s not how it is.”

She shakes her head and looks up at Violet.

“Not now,” Clem says. “I can’t do this now.”

“When else is there?” says Violet.

“Not now,” says Clem.

“Why not? What if we’re dead tomorrow? I want you to know that I stayed with you. I didn’t leave you. I’m giving you my life, Clem.”

“I’ve been with AJ his entire life,” Clem says. “I’ve already given him mine. You can’t ask me to say that I love someone ‘more’ than him. That’s not a fair comparison.”

“I need you just as much as AJ does.”

“I love you, Violet. I really do. But I’m not leaving AJ behind, even if you and I are just pretending. He didn’t listen to me in the barn and I’m still alive because he didn’t. Because I told him when I took him from the ranch that the first rule was to never go alone—the same rule I forgot when I told Willy to go by himself. You remember when I told you that, AJ?”

“I don’t remember any of that,” I say. “I don’t even know how old I was.”

“Two,” Clem says. “But it’s good that you don’t remember. You don’t need those nightmares. And I don’t need to dream about Violet every night when she’s gone because I sent her away with a promise I couldn’t keep. We need to live our lives and leave the things from the old world unspoken so we don’t curse ourselves by bringing them to life with our words.”

“My uncle the professor would be proud of you,” says Louis. “I see where AJ gets his intelligence from.”

Violet’s head droops down so low that her face is almost in her lap.

“I’m sorry I asked,” she says. “I should have known better. I should have left you two alone in quarantine.” She sits up straight. Her eyes are wet. “Don’t worry about me. I won’t bother you any more.”

“Violet…” says Clem.

Violet stands up and walks over to the door. She hits her head against the wall really hard.

“Take it easy, Violet,” says Omar.

“There is no easy,” says Violet.

“Relax, Violet,” says Louis. “The walkers will be here to eat us soon enough and then we won’t have to worry about any of this.”

“Yeah,” says Violet. “I think I hear them right now.”

“I’m pretty sure he was just joking,” says Aasim.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” says Violet. “I’m pretty sure those were walkers I heard outside.”

“Didn’t Clem just say not to bring things to life with our words?” says Omar. “I think we should talk about the food situation.”

“And the shelter situation,” says Aasim. “We could really use a bigger fire.”

“Another walker magnet?” says Louis.

“Let’s stay quiet for now,” says Clem. “At least until the walkers outside are gone. We can think about a plan of action in the meanwhile.”

And just like that, everyone does what Clementine says. I think when I get older, I want to learn how to make people listen to me. Clem’s really good at it. So good that I can’t even tell what it is about her that makes them listen.

Except Violet. She doesn’t listen to anyone.

“Yeah,” says Violet. “I’ll be quiet as fuck while I sit here and think about the best way to  keep moving forward .”

She kneels down with her head against the wall and instead of being quiet, she pukes all over the floor. Clem takes me into her lap again and puts her arms around me. She’s still shaking, which means she should be crying, but she probably doesn’t have any tears left. I’d give her some of mine if I hadn’t used them all up in the barn when she wanted me to leave her and I wouldn’t. Maybe that’s what she’s feeling about Willy right now, like I could have been Willy. I  would have been Willy if I had left her in the barn like she told me to.

And if Clem did what Violet wanted just now, I bet Violet would make Clem leave me ‘cause Violet doesn’t know when to quit. She gets way too crazy when Clem tries to do stuff that we need to do. Clem was right to say no to her—even if she says she loves Violet—because me and Clem are already a team. Clem’s arms make me feel a lot warmer than this fire does. I know Violet doesn’t like it right now, but maybe some day she’ll see that this is the way things have to be.


	11. Clementine

We sit in silence around an oil lamp too small to keep us warm. AJ rummages through the room looking for things that aren’t made of wood so we can make a containment ring and start a decent fire without burning another building down. It seems like forever ago when Abel—why do I still remember his name?—got the drop on me and AJ in this exact same room without either one of us noticing. I drag myself over to the ticket counter’s metal shutters and take a look around the inside of the train station: nothing. At least for now. Aasim and AJ find a box of old candles and get them burning on the floor in the middle of our little circle. That should save us some lamp fuel. Better to stay cold and hungry than to turn soft and find yourself all over the floor like the wax from these candles.

“Are we on top of that room beneath the floor?” says Louis.

“Yeah,” says AJ. “It doesn’t go anywhere. And I don’t think we could dig through the walls if we needed to escape.”

“We could hide in there,” says Aasim.

“That would be a permanent hiding place,” I say. “If walkers find us here, we can wait them out. They’ll get bored and wander off if we stay quiet enough. I’m just worried about those bandits from up north.”

“Are you starting to believe Willy’s stories now?” says Ruby.

“After what happened to the school, we can’t afford to rule out any possibilities,” I say. “If we don’t see something coming, no matter how strange or unlikely, that might be the last mistake we make.”

“Yeah,” says AJ. “That’s right. We have to assume walkers are gonna come here.”

Violet lifts her forehead from the far wall and sits up on the backs of her legs.

“I hear them now,” she says.

“I know you’re upset, Violet,” says Ruby, “but this isn’t the time to let your emotions be your guide.”

“We have to take any potential threat seriously,” I say. “Let’s stay quiet for a while and think about a plan of action while we ride out this herd, wherever it is.”

“A herd?” says Louis.

“Willy took out a lot of them,” says Aasim.

“You saw how many there were outside the fishing shack,” I say. “We have to assume just as many survived. Now be quiet. I want each of us to come up with at least one idea by the time these candles are half-burned.”

For a long while silence hangs over us. Omar coughs into his coat sleeve. Ruby rubs her hands together in front of the candles. Aasim hugs her for warmth. Louis holds his own arms. AJ sits in my lap. He and I keep each other warm enough.

Apparently it’s warm enough for the walkers, too: moaning and hissing loud enough to be heard through two walls heads our way and starts banging on the train station’s doors and metal-barred window frames.

“Why doesn’t the cold slow them down?” says Ruby.

“It has to be a lot colder,” I say. “When you feel like you’re going to freeze to death, that’s when they finally go into hibernation.”

“So if the walkers don’t get you, the cold does,” says Aasim. “Figures.”

Violet stands up and sets her hands against the locked door.

“Or maybe they mutated,” she says.

Her emerald eyes stare right through the back of my head, even in the dim candlelight. I pat the floor next to me, inviting her to sit down. She turns away from me and checks her gun’s magazine.

“I’m out,” she says. “How many arrows you got, Lou?”

“Twenty,” says Louis. “Forty if I pull the arrows from their bodies before they eat me or set me on fire.”

“Then we have to do this the hard way,” says Violet.

“What do you mean?” says Ruby.

“I thought we were supposed to lie low until they pass,” says Omar.

“They know we’re here,” says Violet. “They have nothing else to live for.” Violet tosses my gun to the ground next to my wooden leg. “Louis, where did you leave that bell the last time we were here?”

“I dropped it on the ground not far from where Clementine requisitioned herself that cool-looking tire swing,” says Louis. “I do recall us coming to an understanding that the next time something like that happened, it would be your turn to—”

“—my turn to make myself useful,” says Violet. “I remember. See ya, Clementine.”

“Violet!” I shout.

I dump AJ off my lap and stand up, sending fire through my icy leg. It’s too late. She’s already out the door, slamming it behind her. Her screams chill my blood and set my heart on fire. Louis rushes after her. Ruby grabs the neck of my jean jacket.

“Louis will handle it,” she says. “You sit tight.”

Violet’s frantic yelling trails off into the distance. I sink to the ground and set my cheek against the cold, hard floorboards as if I could track her footsteps through the earth somehow. The door slams shut. Louis locks it. I sit up.

“How is she going to get back in here?” I say.

“She’s buying us time,” Louis says. “Just like Willy did. We need to make good use of it.”

“But I didn’t tell her to do that,” I say.

“You did,” says Ruby. She sits back down next to Aasim. “That’s what she heard when you shot her down.”

“Shot her down?” I say.

“You remember what I told you?” says Ruby. “She doesn’t think much of herself. You didn’t even want to pretend that you were two peas in a pod. And now you’re not.”

“How can you say that?”

“The truth isn’t always easy,” says Ruby. “You’re the only person she ever talks to me about these days. She thought you were different than everyone else because you understand how she thinks. Maybe she was wrong.”

“That is  not the way things are,” I say. “I have to go after her.”

My frozen leg won’t let me stand up straight, not even with the help of my crutches. I have to hold on to AJ’s little shoulders to keep myself from falling over.

“Aren’t any of you going to help me?” I say.

“Do what?” says Aasim.

“Rescue Violet,” I say.

“She doesn’t need rescuing,” says Louis.

“We’d just be feeding ourselves to the walkers,” says Omar.

“Clem, what happened?” says AJ. “They aren’t listening to you. Does that mean you’re not their leader?”

“I’ve seen Violet do this before, Clementine,” says Ruby. “We all have. When she gets like this, the only thing you can do is wait for her to come back. Even if we could find her, none of us would be able to help her. Not even you.”

“ If she comes back,” says Louis.

AJ doesn’t have to help me back down to the floor. I find it fast enough by myself.

“Why did she break the rule about not going alone?” AJ says.

I cross my arms on top of my bent knees and stare down at the sleeves of this old military jacket Violet found for me. Wish I had my hat to hide my eyes.

“Because I didn’t tell her about that rule,” I say. “So she decided to leave us before we could leave her.”

“Why would we leave her?” says AJ.

“We wouldn’t,” I say.

“We do, however, need to leave so we can find some food,” says Louis. “We go to bed on empty stomachs and we might wake up with winter diarrhea.”

“What’s that?” says AJ.

“That’s when your stomach is on fire and you have to put an ice cube up your—”

“Dude, shut up,” says Aasim. “Where exactly would we go hunting? We’ve still got bear and hardtack.”

“True,” says Omar, “but a nice snow hare or two would really lift our spirits. And keep our stomachs happy so we don’t need ice cubes.”

“I like the way you think, Omar,” says Louis. “We could consider scouting one of the local neighborhoods for prey. No infiltration. Just reconnaissance and opportunism.”

“We should think about finding a new place to stay long term,” says Ruby. “Those walkers aren’t going to be leaving the school any time soon, not with so many places to lurk and hide and ambush passersby. What do you think, Clem?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” I say. “If it did, Violet would still be here.”

“It  does matter what you think, fearless leader,” says Louis. “That’s why we’re asking you.”

“Fearless, my ass,” I say. “I’m done running. I will not have Willy’s death be for nothing. And Violet needs to know where to find us.”

“All right, then,” says Louis. “If you want to make a stand like your beloved Violet did, I propose we stock up and arm ourselves. And I know just the place.”

“I should have known this was coming,” says Aasim.

“Hancock,” says Louis.

I look up from my legs. Louis is a fucking idiot.

“We almost got blown up in Hancock,” I say. “You and Violet ran into an armed group who were looking for you. And now you want to march right back into the middle of them? What would you do, exactly? Play a card game with those assholes and hope they don’t mount your head on a stick?”

“That’s not quite what I had in mind,” says Louis. “And for the record, I never said those guys were from Hancock. We also didn’t know what they were looking for. They could have been out in the woods hunting, just like me and Aasim.”

“You’re full of shit,” I say.

“It took you that long to figure it out?” says Aasim.

Ruby chuckles.

“It took me until now to figure out that everyone is fucking insane,” I say. I throw my crutches down onto the floor. I don’t care how much noise they make. “Maybe I should run off into those walkers after Violet since everyone else in this group seems to have developed a death wish.”

“Clem,” says AJ, “I think Louis is right.”

“What?” I say. “Please don’t tell me you’re falling for his nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense,” AJ says. “He knows what he’s talking about.”

“I do indeed,” says Louis. “I know exactly where all the traps are—and where the good stuff is.”

“Like a metal leg for Clem?” says AJ.

“If that’s what you’re after,” says Louis, “I think I can sweeten the deal. There’s an old military hospital several miles southwest of Hancock. Walkers drove out the soldiers not long after the outbreak. And I know for a fact that nobody’s touched any of the military-grade equipment inside because it’s locked down behind military-grade security systems. Fortunately, I know the codes to get us in.”

“If they haven’t changed them,” says Aasim.

“You don’t exactly seem like the military type,” I say.

“No, but my father had money, and when you have money, a lot of people suddenly become your type. Generals, administrators, secretaries. People who have codes memorized. My dad was bad at remembering things, good at writing them down, and terrible about hiding the things he wrote down.”

“He wouldn’t have to hide anything if he rigged your house with bombs and put fucking land mines in your front yard,” I say.

“No bombs in that hospital,” says Louis. “Those are most definitely not allowed on a military installation. Just barbed wire to the clouds and lots of steel gates with unbreakable locks. Behind all of that, the best medical supplies taxpayer money can buy. Rations with a long shelf life. I’d be surprised if they  didn’t have a prosthetic leg that fits Clem.”

“Prosthetic?” says AJ.

“Like my wooden leg, except metal,” I say. “Why didn’t you take us there instead of Hancock? If I had a metal leg, I could have gone after Violet.”

“I guess I always thought of it as a last resort,” says Louis. “I didn’t know the houses in Hancock were going to give us so many problems. They never did before.”

“You’ve been there before?” I say.

“By myself,” Louis says. “Usually when Violet threatened to murder me and I needed to disappear for a day. Her temper cooled off quite a bit when you two…you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” I say. “I bet that group near Hancock uses that hospital as their base of operations. There’s no way anyone just lets a fortress like that sit out in the open without exploiting it.”

“It’s tucked away into lush and leafy woods,” says Louis. “Just like the school. Nobody found us there unless we wanted them to.”

“Except Billy,” says AJ. “But that was because all his friends were dead and he didn’t have anything else, so he followed us here from Hancock. If there were people at the hospital, they would have taken him and made him fight for them. Like those raiders.”

“Exactly,” says Louis.

“He could have been lying,” I say. “Maybe he thought we were close to finding the hospital and wanted to keep us away from it.”

“No, Clem,” says AJ. “When you’re looking death right in the eye, you don’t care about lying anymore. He was telling the truth.”

“You had a gun pointed at Lilly and she still lied.”

“That’s ‘cause I didn’t shoot her yet.”

I shake my head. Six years old and he talks like this.

“I know we’ve been through a lot,” I say. “But I don’t want to hear you talk like that.”

“It’s true, though.”

“Even if it’s true.”

AJ looks down at the floor. When he looks up again, his eyes are hard.

“Clementine,” he says.

“Excuse me?” I say.

“That’s your whole name,” AJ says. “I used it ‘cause that means I’m serious. You should stop being sad so much. We need food, supplies, ammo. Louis knows where to get that stuff.”

“So you’re saying I should come with you so I can focus on helping the group instead of sitting around and moping. All right, I’m in.”

“ You might be in,” says Ruby, “but that wooden leg of yours isn’t.”

“It was when AJ and I went scavenging,” I say.

“It looks like it’s rotting from the inside out,” says Ruby.

“I’ll make it,” I say. “I’ll keep it out of the snow. And if it breaks, I’ll use an icicle.”

“An icicle will break pretty quickly if you need to run,” says Ruby. “You need a new leg before you can undertake any non-essential travel. Doctor’s orders. And I won’t hear a word otherwise.”

“I’ll go,” says AJ. “I can help Louis find you a metal leg in that hospital.”

“Alvin Junior, you will do no such thing,” I say.

“I can do this, Clem.” AJ puts his hand on my knee above my wooden leg like Violet does sometimes. “I know I promised Ruby I would listen to you, but you have to let me do things when you can’t. Like what Violet did for you when I was sick. She helped you control your anger. I heard everything you two talked about. I remember it. This is a big decision I have to make for you. You said I could.”

“I said I’d let you go hunting with Louis and Aasim when you were ready,” I say.

“And I’m ready,” says AJ. “You let Violet distract those walkers. She made a tough decision for you because she wanted me and Louis and Aasim to do this for you. For the group.”

“You leave and I’ll have nothing left,” I say.

“We’re coming back,” says AJ.

“Yes, we are indeed,” says Louis. “We go out there, grab those supplies, find a metal leg that can last Clem through the winter, and pack up as much food as we can carry. Then, we hustle back here before sundown, eat dinner, sleep, and in the morning, we’ll be ready to clean up those walkers in the school systematically.”

“I think we should sneak up on them one by one,” says AJ.

“Yeah, I agree,” says Aasim. “I’ll go with you two to keep Louis in line.”

“Aasim,” says Louis. “I am shocked that you would think anything less than the world of me. You ready, hunting partner?”

“Partner would imply that you actually hunt,” says Aasim. “How far is it to this hospital?”

“Five hours with a manly stride,” says Louis.

He stands up and adjusts the shoulders of his long-tailed coat.

“That’s too far for you, AJ,” I say. “You’re too little.”

“Didn’t you ever help adults when you were a kid?” says AJ. “I bet you could get into places they couldn’t. That’s what I’m gonna do. Maybe I need to crawl through a tunnel and unlock a door so we can escape and not get eaten by walkers. What happens if I’m not there?”

“The same thing that happens when Violet’s not here,” I say. “You do what you think is best and someone still dies. I just don’t want it to be you.” I sigh and straighten my legs against the floor. “My uncle had cancer. The kind you don’t recover from. You’d never know it, though. Happiest person you ever met. When my grandfather died, my dad was sad for a long time. My uncle told him that you can’t stop living just because you know you’re going to die some day. Otherwise, you’re already dead. So go hunting, AJ. Go be helpful.”

“I will,” he says.

He hugs me tight with his head against my shoulder.

“Be safe,” I say. I take out my knife and offer him the handle. “Even if something looks dead, don’t take any chances.”

“I won’t,” he says. He takes my knife and stands up. “I’ll bring you a new leg. I promise.”

“And you have to promise me that you will  not run off from Louis and Aasim.”

“Don’t worry, Clem. I know not to go alone. I’m not gonna run off into walkers like Violet did because I’m not…um…”

“Not what?” I say.

Aasim chuckles. Louis smiles and rubs the back of his neck with his hand. I’m about to slap the grin off his face.

“She’s brave is what she is,” says Ruby. “Just like you, AJ. And don’t you forget what we talked about. Me and Clem and Omar are going to be waiting right here for you to come back in one piece with enough food to last us a while. You know what’s gonna happen after that?”

“We’re gonna eat?” says AJ.

“We sure are,” says Ruby. “And while we’re doing that, Violet’s going to come marching right through that door and sit down to dinner. And she’s going to say thank you for trusting in her.”

“Yeah,” says AJ. “I like the sound of that.”

I don’t. I can’t stop staring at AJ. Is this the last time I’m going to see him?

“Clem…” he says.

“Just go,” I say. “Don’t say goodbye. You’ll be back.”

Louis and Aasim lead AJ through the door of our little hideaway with its seven candles burning, one for each of us. I take the one nearest to me and hold it in my hands, wishing with all my might that I could make myself believe my own words.


	12. AJ

Louis says we gotta be quick even though we’re walking through snow halfway up to my knees that makes my pants wet. For once, Aasim actually sounds happy about something Louis said. We don’t see any walkers. I hope that means they’re gone, but I know as soon as you start thinking that way, that’s when they show up. And they can run, now, too, so if you can’t run faster than them, you have to forget you have a brain and go all out against them. Like Violet did. I don’t understand her, though. She should have just waited for the walkers to get bored like Clem said they would. I’ve never seen it happen, but if I could smell something and not see it, I would give up and go look for something else to eat. Maybe Violet didn’t believe her. Maybe Violet’s brain wasn’t working right. Ruby said she’s brave, but I don’t know if that’s the only thing going on in her head. I wanna ask Louis about it. He seems to know her pretty well. I just don’t know how to talk to him about it. He’s busy making sure we don’t leave too many footprints that lead people back to the train station.

“Louis,” I say, “do you fight with Violet so much ‘cause you’re in love with her?”

Aasim almost falls over laughing. He’s making too much noise. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Louis stops in the middle of counting his steps and breathes up into the air. It’s cold enough that you can see it.

“Violet never did like my piano,” says Louis. “Clementine likes it better than she does, but only when the piano goes quiet and the music is still playing in her head. That painful truth is the score to the symphony of my life.”

Aasim won’t stop laughing. Louis sighs.

“Not everyone is worthy of someone as special as Ruby,” Louis says.

“Stop,” says Aasim. “You’re gonna make me vomit all over this pristine snow.”

“You’re right,” says Louis. “Silence makes for a great companion when you don’t want to attract the attention of bandits, walkers, bears…”

Louis walks ahead of us almost too fast for me to keep up, even with that big orange bow and a tall bag of arrows. All I’ve got is my gun but it doesn’t have any bullets.

“Sorry I asked,” I say. “If I see a bear, I’m gonna fuck it up.”

“Damn,” says Aasim.

“I see Violet’s been rubbing off on you,” says Louis. “’If you love them, let them go.’ That’s what my dad always said. And yet, mom stuck around him for quite some time.”

“Was she in love with him?” I say.

“Well…” says Louis.

“In love with his money, I bet,” says Aasim.

“I think it’s high time for us to operate in silent mode,” says Louis. “I don’t want us to be overheard by people who have never known the exquisite pain of unrequited love.”

“That sounds like some pretty romantic shit right there,” says Aasim.

“Romantic?” I say. “What’s that?”

“It’s when, uh…” says Aasim.

“It’s what Clem and Violet do when they think you’re not looking,” Louis says to me. “They think you don’t know, but you do. Right?”

“Yeah,” I say. I look at my shoes while I walk. Better make sure I’m not leaving too many footprints in the snow. “It’s all that kissing stuff.”

“That would be it,” says Louis. “My lips, however, are sealed.”

“For once,” says Aasim.

Louis leads us through a forest with a million trees that never go away. This long walk is starting to make my legs tired. And I’m hungry. I need to eat something. I take out some of Omar’s bear meat and chew on it while we walk through this boring, wet, cold snow. The meat doesn’t taste like anything but it makes my stomach shut up so I can think about how my feet feel like they’re at the bottom of a frozen lake. And we’re not even there yet.

“Shouldn’t we be there by now?” says Aasim. “Or at least going west? I’m pretty sure I heard you say this hospital was southwest of Hancock.”

“And I’m pretty sure I heard you say the security codes might have changed,” says Louis. “That’s why we’re making a pit stop at Hancock. I want to make sure we don’t go home empty-handed.”

Aasim stops walking and stares at Louis.

“We told Clem we were going to the hospital where there aren’t supposed to be any bandits,” Aasim says.

“Clem’s just being a worry-wart,” says Louis. “There aren’t any bandits in Hancock, either.”

“Clem doesn’t know that,” says Aasim. “You told her we were taking AJ to the hospital. What do you think she’s going to do if something happens to him?”

“Fine,” says Louis. He stops walking. “If it means that much to you, you can take AJ back to Clementine. I’ll go on ahead by myself. I’ve done it plenty of times before.”

“I’m not a little kid,” I say. “You don’t need to ‘bring me back’ to anyone.”

“Maybe not,” says Aasim, “but Clementine worries about you. And I know you care about what she thinks.”

“I was the one who convinced Clem to let me come with you in the first place,” I say. “We can’t just turn around now. If I didn’t think Louis knew what he was talking about, I wouldn’t have followed him. If he says we can find a metal leg for Clem in the hospital or in Hancock or wherever, then that’s where I wanna go.”

“Thank you, AJ,” says Louis. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“I can’t believe I’m listening to this,” says Aasim. “You’re taking life advice from a six-year-old.”

“Aasim, you said you were gonna keep an eye on Louis,” I say. “You can’t do that if you leave.”

“Yeah, I sure did say that,” says Aasim. “All right. Let’s get moving again before I turn into a snowman and some asshole with a shotgun decides to come blow my head off.”

It takes forever and a day to reach Hancock. I know we’re there when I spot those white brick walls that go up above my head and the thick metal bars with pointed spikes that are even taller than Louis—and he’s pretty tall. I don’t have to squeeze through the bars this time because the gate is open.

“Someone’s been here,” whispers Aasim.

“There aren’t any footprints other than ours,” says Louis. “And we were the ones who left the gate open. That means nobody’s been here since the last time we came.”

“Then we need to be quick so that doesn’t change,” says Aasim. “You could have at least painted those orange wheels on your bow a different color so you don’t stick out like a sore thumb.”

“I like to stand out,” says Louis. “Besides, we won’t be here long. I promise. See that third house on the right?”

“The one with the ornate wooden shutters and shitty air conditioning unit?” says Aasim.

“I knew that family,” says Louis. “Strange sense of style.”

He heads toward the house. We kick snow over his footsteps while we follow him.

“They weren’t so enthusiastic about setting traps inside their home sweet home,” says Louis. “They figured they’d come back here some day and when they did, they wanted everything to be in one piece.”

“Is it still in one piece?” I say.

Louis stands hunched over with his hands cupped together at his knees like he wants to boost someone.

“It is,” says Louis. “But unfortunately that family isn’t. I think they’d want people like us to put their possessions to good use. Up you go, AJ.”

I step into his hands. He lifts me up on top of the metal box sticking out of the house. There’s a grate just above my head with four screws and some weird birds that look like people. I bet this is a tunnel that leads inside the house. We’re not going in the front door ‘cause it’s probably booby trapped. That’s what I’d do even if my house were really nice like this one. I take out Clem’s knife and start twisting off the first screw.

“How do you know AJ’s not going to crawl through this air duct and land in a bunch of bad stuff?” says Aasim.

“Because I’ve been inside the house and I didn’t blow up,” says Louis.

“So why didn’t you clean the place out when you were here?” says Aasim.

The first screw is off. Time to start on the second one.

“I make a habit of saving ‘honey pots’ like this house for when I really need them,” says Louis. “Like right now when we’re low on food and supplies and we’ve just been kicked out of our home. I like to plan for the future, Aasim. As a future father, you might want to start thinking about doing the same.”

“You of all people are seriously not going to lecture me on parenthood,” says Aasim.

There goes the second screw. I barely even need to use Clem’s knife on the third one. It’s so loose that it practically falls out on its own.

“What are those things on the corners of the grate?” I say.

“Faeries,” says Louis.

“Haven’t heard that word in a while,” says Aasim.

“What are those?” I say.

“Magical creatures that fly around and sprinkle dust all over everything,” says Louis. “It makes flowers grow and people fall in love. I think faeries must have found Clementine and Violet.”

“That sounds stupid,” I say.

“You got that right,” says Aasim.

“That’s what people used to say about walkers,” says Louis.

Before the last screw is even halfway out, the metal grate falls off the side of the house. I have to hold up my arms over my head so it doesn’t stab me in the face. Aasim lets out a whole bunch of swears. And he’s really loud. I guess I would be, too, if I had a big bruise under my eye like Aasim does.

“That thing could have taken my eye out,” he says. “Or both of them. I can’t afford to go blind.”

“You little shits are already blind!” says a deep voice. A gun cocks. “Put your fucking hands where I can see them. You turn around, it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

I’m not gonna turn around to see whether Louis and Aasim have their hands up. Whoever this is, he’s not taking Clem’s knife. Raiders did that last time and we almost died for it. I bet he’s not looking at me ‘cause he thinks I’m just a little kid. I hold the knife in both hands close to my waist.

“What the hell did you just stash, little boy? I told you to put your fucking hands up. Get down off that box.”

What would Clem tell me to do if she were here? She told me to kill Lilly. I think she’d tell me to kill this guy before he does it to me. You get soft and people die. You’re hard and people die. At least when you’re hard, you have a better shot at not being one of those people.

I jump down off the metal box, turn in mid-air, and throw Clem’s knife at the guy’s face as hard as I can. The handle hits him right between the eyes. Blood starts gushing out of his nose and down into his bushy beard. He stumbles backward. I run up to him and grab the end of his rifle before he can aim it again. I shove the barrel to one side as hard as I can. A shot goes off and hits the metal behind us. Aasim swears at the top of his lungs. I don’t have time to look. Louis needs to help me get the rifle from this guy. What’s taking him so long?

“AJ, move!” Louis says.

He’s got an arrow pointed right at us. This guy is way stronger than me. And I bet he has better aim than Louis. If I try to run, he’ll get me before Louis gets him.

“Just shoot!” I say.

Louis lets an arrow fly right into the side of the guy’s head. It knocks his green baseball hat onto the ground and makes his head all bloody but he doesn’t go down. He takes one hand off his rifle and pulls the arrow out of his thick skull. Who was that guy Clem talked about? Carver. He had a really thick skull. She said her friend Kenny had to bash it in otherwise Carver would never stop killing people.

That’s why I have to kick this guy between his legs as hard as I can and take his rifle away. He goes down onto his knees and grabs himself between his legs. I smash the fat end of the rifle between his eyes so hard that my arms sting. He sits down on the backs of his legs. He looks dizzy. I can’t shoot him unless I want all the walkers and bandits who heard the first gunshot to know exactly where we are.

“Stop,” he says. “You got me.”

“You’re not the only one who’s hit, asshole,” says Aasim. “You shattered my fucking hip.”

I’m not gonna turn back to see how bad Aasim is hurt. I’m not even going to wait for Louis to open his mouth and tell me this guy’s not a threat. I already know what happens when you don’t take people seriously.

I smash the thick end of the rifle into the guy’s skull again. He falls down to the ground on his face. He doesn’t even lift his arms to stop himself from falling. I smash his head one more time, two more times. His skull makes a weird crunching sound. Three times. Blood is all over my coat and pants. Four times. Louis grabs the bloody rifle from me and throws it down into the snow. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I say.

“You can see his brains,” says Louis. “He’s not going anywhere.”

“Which means he’s not gonna rob us or kill us or call for his friends,” I say. “And now we have a rifle.”

“Guys,” says Aasim.

Aasim limps to Louis with blood running down his jeans. Louis grabs Aasim with both arms before he falls down.

“How’s your hip?” says Louis.

“Fucked,” says Aasim. “Probably going to need to have this shrapnel taken out.”

“Clem knows how to do it,” I say. “She did it for me.”

“Great,” says Aasim. “She can help Ruby do it when we get back.”

He tries to walk by himself but his knee is stuck and won’t bend.

“I don’t know how far I can go,” he says. “Feels like my legs are going to give out.”

“We can drag you or I can carry you on my back,” says Louis. “Either way, it’s going to take the rest of the day.”

“I’ll go hide somewhere in the woods while you two grab supplies,” says Aasim. “We can’t go back with nothing.”

“We might not go back at all if we stick around here,” says Louis.

“Aasim is right,” I say. “We need that stuff. Bandages for his hip. A leg for Clem. Wait…you really wanna go alone, Aasim?”

“It’s our best choice,” says Aasim, “not that any of our choices are good at this point. The least shitty choice, I guess you could say.”

“I agree that we could really use those supplies,” says Louis, “but if there’s anyone else like him…” He nods at the dead body. “…out there waiting to ambush you with that wounded hip of yours, it won’t matter how right we are. They could be drawing on us from the trees even as we speak. Get down!”

A gunshot from somewhere out in the woods hits the side of the house three inches to the left of where Aasim’s head was before we all dropped down. The snow is barely high enough to cover us. The guy who ambushed us hasn’t even been dead for two minutes and he already smells like he hasn’t taken a bath in the river in forever.

“Follow me,” Louis whispers.

He crawls forward in the snow with Aasim right behind him. I take Clem’s knife and the dead guy’s rifle and follow them. I can’t tell where we’re going. A bullet hits the dead guy somewhere in his fat belly. Aasim leaves a trail of red in the snow behind him to show all the walkers and asshole bandits where to find us. There’s no way he’ll be able to outrun that guy shooting at us. And if Clem doesn’t get a better leg, she might run into one of his friends. Maybe her wooden leg breaks in half while she runs away and she has to crawl on the ground like we are right now but she’s not fast enough and they come up behind her and blow her brains out.

“I’m not going,” I say.

“What the fuck?” says Aasim.

“You two can go,” I say. “I’m not leaving without a leg for Clem.”

“Dude,” says Louis. “That guy has a fucking gun and range on us. We don’t have a choice. We have to keep low until we figure out where he is and whether we can get an angle on him.”

“You’re not going to surprise shit with that fucking orange bow,” says Aasim.

“I’ll ditch it if I have to,” says Louis.

“You don’t need to surprise anyone,” I say. “I’m gonna cover you.”

“This kid is nuts, man,” says Aasim. “Scary thing is I don’t know whether he learned it from Clem or Violet.”

“Give me the rifle,” says Louis. “ I’ll cover you two.”

“What are the codes to the hospital?” I say.

“Not happening, little man,” says Louis.

“I’m not little,” I say. “I know how to use this rifle. Tell me the codes.”

Louis sighs. He circles back around on his stomach.

“We do not have time for this,” he says. “Look, AJ, you remember what Clem told you about not going alone, right?”

“She let Violet go alone,” I say. “Ruby said Violet’s brave. I’m gonna show Clem that I’m just like Violet.”

“So you learned it from Violet,” says Aasim. “Fantastic. If this guy doesn’t kill us, my hip might do me in. I need to run before it freezes solid.”

“AJ,” says Louis. “I am begging you to give me that rifle and let me cover you two. That’s what Clem would want. Violet is nuts.”

“She is not,” I say. “She’s strong. You’re just saying that because you don’t like her.”

“Okay, she’s strong,” says Louis. “Point is, she’s a hell of a lot stronger than you. Clem didn’t want her to go alone. Clem doesn’t want  you to go alone. Would you please, pretty please, give me that rifle?”

I don’t think so, Louis. You never take anything seriously. I check the rifle: three bullets left.

“Violet had to make that decision for Clem,” I say. “I have to do this for her, too.”

“She’s gonna fucking kill us if we come back without him,” says Aasim.

“What do you want me to do?” says Louis. “He won’t listen to me.”

“You’re bigger than him,” says Aasim.

“And get Clem pissed off at me?” says Louis. “I’ll never hear the end of it from Violet.”

“On the count of three,” I say, “I’m gonna stand up and fire at that guy.”

“You don’t even know where he is,” says Aasim.

“One.”

“It’s been nice knowing you, Aasim,” says Louis.

“Two.”

“Shut the fuck up and get ready to run with me,” says Aasim.

“Three.”

I stand up and fire into the trees way out in the distance. The rifle knocks me on my butt. A bullet zings off the metal box on the side of the house. Now I know where it came from. I run around the corner and blast at the trees where I saw the gun flash. Some of the bushes near the tree trunks move like someone dropped to the ground behind them. Louis and Aasim run through the open gate and toward the trees as fast as they can. Aasim looks like he forgot his hip is hurt. When the bushes out in the trees move again, I fire the last bullet and drop the rifle. I take off running away from Louis and Aasim past the houses to the left of the gate we came in through. I don’t go between the houses ‘cause I don’t want to hit any traps. The further I run from this guy, the harder it is for him to figure out how high he has to aim to hit me. To make it even harder, I run back and forth in zigs-zags like Clem taught me. Walkers are too dumb to care about zig-zags, but most people who are still alive are usually pretty smart and zig-zags make their heads hurt. It works: that guy’s bullets don’t even come close to me.

I make it to another one of those gates. This one is closed so I have to squeeze through the bars. It’s gonna be hard for that guy to follow me if he’s as fat as the other one was. I gotta keep moving, though. Louis said the hospital was southwest from here. I made a right angle away from Louis and Aasim, and they’re going south, so that means these woods up ahead of me are west. Clem thought I wasn’t old enough for geometry, but she changed her mind when she saw how smart I am. And she’s gonna see how brave I am, too. That’s what Louis and Aasim are going to tell her when I come back with a metal leg for her and medical supplies for Aasim’s hip and food for the group that doesn’t taste like a sandy bear’s butt. I’m gonna make Clem so proud of me that she’ll be too happy to yell at me for going alone. And that’ll make me happy. So happy that I won’t even care when Clem kisses Violet right in front of me when Violet comes back. In the old world, they used to call that a family, and that’s what me and Clem are.


	13. AJ

Out here in the woods there’s a whole bunch of footsteps leading everywhere around the trees. This must be where the bandits hide when they spy on the houses. I’m gonna follow the trails they made through the snow so they don’t know where to find me. If I hurry and keep myself low to the ground, I should be able to lose them. Louis was wrong about there not being any people here. He’s probably wrong about the security codes, too. I like Louis but I try not to let myself like him too much. He’s gonna get himself killed one of these days and I won’t be able to do anything about it. I gotta make sure I get in and out of this hospital without getting shot in the hip like Aasim.

Clem said she went looking for a place like this once. She spent hours and hours walking out into the middle of nowhere because someone said there was food there. Her group almost broke apart because they thought that guy was lying, but when they found the house, there was food. And the next day, the guy shot Clem while he was trying to escape with all their supplies. So I gotta be smart. If I’m lucky, I’ll find some ammo for my gun. But there’s gonna be people in that hospital, so I have to look like I’m not looking for ammo, otherwise they’ll think I’m trying to escape with their supplies.

That’s why I’m gonna pretend to be one of them. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll have to shoot my way through them like Clem did at the ranch. Even if it gives me the same kind of nightmares that she has. She rescued me from those monsters because she didn’t want me to become one of them. Maybe she would have turned into a monster, too, if she had to spend a long time looking for me. The same thing is gonna happen to me if I come back to her without a new leg. I have to show her that I’m brave like Violet. Not crazy, Louis. Brave.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing out here?”

I didn’t even see this guy hiding behind that tree. Probably because he’s so skinny. He looks angry. When you don’t eat much, that makes you angry. And it makes you lose all your hair. He holds up a gun as long as his legs against his puffy brown coat. He’s so tough he doesn’t even need to point it at me. Maybe he thinks I’m one of his people. He’s right.

“Lou told me to check the houses for movement,” I say. “I saw some kids looking around, but they ran away when they saw me.”

“Kids, huh?” he says. “And  you scared them off? That’s all well and good, but who the fuck is Lou?”

He’s got a pretty mean frown. I give it back to him.

“I don’t know his real name,” I say. “Am I supposed to ask him? I just did what he told me to and now I’m heading back to report in.”

“How come I ain’t ever seen you before?” he says.

“’Cause you’re not supposed to,” I say. “I go crawling into places nobody else can and hide so people can’t see me looking at them. You heard those gunshots, right? I told everyone where those people were. They won’t come back.”

“Those high-powered shots didn’t come from that little peashooter you got tucked under your coat.”

“Do I look like I’m stupid? I save these bullets for stuff that’s worth it, not a couple of skinny teenagers looking for food.”

The guy laughs at me with his entire belly. He looks weird when he does that ‘cause he’s so skinny. I can’t tell whether he’s happy or angry.

“Go on back, then,” he says. “I’ll clean ‘em up if they’re stupid enough to stick around.”

He walks away toward the houses. I hope Louis and Aasim made it out of there all right. I really hope I don’t have to keep talking to stupid people all the way to the hospital and tell them how stupid they are.

“Hey, kid!” the guy shouts. “Where you going?”

“The hospital,” I say.

“Is that what they’re calling it now? Go left at those bushes unless you want to lose your foot to a bear trap.”

I do what he says so I don’t need to find myself two new legs. It’s going to be hard enough finding supplies in this…in this huge fortress as big as our school with barbed wire on top of waist-high brick walls. Guys with guns are everywhere walking in and out of tents and between metal barrels with fires burning inside them. Louis was wrong about this place being locked down, he was wrong about there being no bandits here, and he was even wrong about it being miles away from Hancock. It’s on the other side of the woods. Didn’t even take me five minutes to walk here. That’s why we run into trouble every single time we come to Hancock. These guys live right next door. Did Louis lie about coming to Hancock before? I bet he did. He talks too much.

There aren’t any gates here, just a bunch of big concrete blocks you have to climb over to get through the gap in the brick walls. It’s a good thing there aren’t any guard dogs otherwise they’d probably be barking at me like crazy. Rosie almost bit the hand off of one of those guys from the care…caravan when they came to the school to see what we had to trade them. I don’t see anybody keeping an eye on the gap in the walls. Maybe they don’t think anyone is stupid enough to try to sneak in. And if they see me climbing up over the walls and under that barbed wire somewhere in the back of the hospital, they’ll know I’m not one of them like I said I was. So I’m going to climb right over these concrete blocks and walk through the gap in the walls like I’m supposed to be doing it.

Nobody stops me. Nobody even looks at me. The guy standing behind the brick wall with dark sunglasses and a black rifle nods to himself like I’m not even there. I wave back without looking at him. I have to keep my eyes forward. I don’t look at the people drawing on maps on tables inside tents. I don’t pay attention to the guys with beards and bulletproof vests and snow pants down to their boots drinking out of bottles around the fires burning in those metal barrels. If I look at any of them, even for a second, they might stop laughing long enough to figure out that I’m not supposed to be here. So I just keep walking straight to the huge building in front of me with tall doors that have tall handles and windows made of glass that isn’t broken. I gotta keep myself from staring at my own face in the glass, that’s how clean it is.

The door only opens up wide enough for me to squeeze through it. As soon as I’m inside, there’s a gun on me. It’s sitting in some guy’s lap. He has a short beard and a fuzzy hat that looks like half an egg on his head. He’s wearing sunglasses even though it’s kinda dark in here. A spaced out row of tall, yellow lights on the walls are the only thing I have to help me see where I’m going. The guy doesn’t look at me at all. He just stares at the big desk at the bottom of twin staircases. A huge sign above the desk has a whole bunch of arrows and the names of the places they lead to.

Infirmary. I learned that one from Willy’s army manuals. That’s where they keep the people who are hurt and need to rest until they get better. That’s where I’ll find a leg for Clem. And I’ll show Violet that Willy’s books weren’t as stupid as she thinks they were. When she comes back, that is. Clem says she’s coming back. And I believe her, ‘cause I’m gonna come back, too. I’m not gonna let her down.

I shove open the squeaky metal doors to the infirmary. I have to tilt my head back to look up at the ceiling. Am I in the right place? Do they keep wounded people in a room big enough to fit a whole airplane? This place is huge. The roof looks like a triangle. There’s scrap metal everywhere and more barrels with fires burning inside them. If that’s the best way to stay warm, maybe we should do that back at the school. I don’t see any beds or a place where a doctor would use his supplies to make people better. Some guy in a dirty white coat that goes down to his knees stops walking long enough to stare at me. Damn. I was looking around for too long and someone noticed.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?”

A guy with black hair above his lip but not on his head walks right up to me. His shirt doesn’t have any sleeves. Why isn’t he cold? His breath smells like rotten apples and kerosene. I forget all about that when he points a really big fucking gun at me. He doesn’t need to act tough if he has one of those. And I know better than to frown at a guy who’s looking at me like he’ll kill me if he doesn’t like what I say.

“Lou told me to come in here and grab a metal rod shaped like a foot,” I say. “He wants to scare off some kids wandering around the houses without wasting bullets.”

“The  houses ?” the guy says. “Bullshit.”

He pushes against my coat with the barrels of his shotgun. I think I should step back, but I don’t. He’ll think I’m afraid if I do that. I’m not—at least, I don’t think I am—but I don’t want him to think that he can read my mind or anything like that. I stand my ground. I guess that was a dumb idea ‘cause he hits me in the stomach with the end of his shotgun really hard. I almost cough up my lungs. I have to focus so he doesn’t know how hard he hit me.

“Do you know a guy named Lee?” I say. “You kinda look like him. From pictures, I mean.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” says the guy in the white coat. He comes closer. His face looks sick and pale. “He’s young, but if he’s still alive, he has to be pretty smart.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m smart.”

“Or you’re so stupid that you think you’re smart,” says the guy with no sleeves. The bright lights up on the ceiling make his bald, brown head glow like a flashlight. “What the fuck are you staring at? How did you get in here?”

“Through the front,” I say. “Where else?”

“And what did you come here for?” he says.

“I told you,” I say. “A metal rod as long as a person’s foot. Up to the shin.”

“I don’t know what to make of it,” says the guy in the white coat. “Why would he come in here asking for something so specific if someone didn’t tell him to do it?”

“Because he’s smart,” says the guy with no sleeves. “Just like my son. He used to try to run this kind of game on me all the time. Things were different back then, but I ain’t completely forgotten it. And you’re lucky I haven’t, little man.”

“Does that mean you have a metal leg?” I say.

“No, it means there was something about you that made me not pull this here trigger and turn your skull into a rotten watermelon just as soon as I saw you walk in here and look around like a lost tourist. Anyone who belongs in here walks straight to where they’re going. They don’t gawk with their mouths open so birds can fly by and drop shit down their throats.”

“Gross,” I say.

The guy in the white coat laughs.

“You know what’s really fucked up?” says the guy with no sleeves. “When groups send women and children to do their prep work thinking we won’t shoot them.” He slides the lever on the side of his shotgun. “They’re wrong.”

The sick-looking guy stops laughing and gets real serious.

“Where’s your group?” he says.

“I don’t have a group,” I say.

“Ain’t nobody out here still alive that doesn’t have a goddamn group,” says the guy with the shotgun.

He shoves the barrels of his gun into my chest really deep. It makes my ribs hurt. I try to flex my stomach muscles back at him, but he just shoves his gun in even further. He gets a really mean look on his face and turns his shotgun around. He smashes it into my belly button so hard that it takes all the air out of my lungs and sends me backward onto the ground. I can’t breathe. It feels like I’m underwater.

“I’m being very patient with you,” he says. “On second thought, you don’t remind me of my son at all. He was smart enough to know when to stop bullshitting and tell me the truth.”

“Let’s try this again,” says the guy in the white coat. He bends over with his hands on his knees like he’s talking to a little baby. “Where’s your group?”

“Far away from here,” I say. I sit up. I wanna spit in his face but maybe I shouldn’t. “They’re really big, too, and they have more guns than you. You’ll never find them.”

“Or maybe they’ll never find you,” says the guy with the shotgun.

He shoves his stupid gun in my face. He should kill me since that’s what he wants to do. But Clem needs a leg. That’s why I came here. And I promised her I’d come back.

“We can trade,” I say. “That’s why they sent me here. My gun doesn’t have any bullets, so you don’t have to shoot me.”

I take my gun out of my waistband real slow. I hold it out with the barrel pointing down at the floor to show them I’m not gonna do anything to make them shoot me. The guy with the gun takes his barrels out of my face but keeps them pointed at me. The guy in the white coat walks up to me. A label above the pocket on his shirt says LAWSON in big, stupid letters. He takes the gun right out of my hand and flips it open. When he sees that it’s empty, he flips it shut and puts it in his shirt pocket. It looks really dumb like that and so does his name. He bends down with his hands on his knees again.

“I’m not a kid,” I say. “You don’t have to talk to me like I’m a dog doing its dookies on the floor.”

He laughs. The guy with the shotgun pointed at me doesn’t.

“Dookies,” says the guy in the white coat. “And you say you’re not a child. So what exactly is this trade you’re looking for? A gun without bullets for an equally useless piece of metal shaped like a leg whose significance escapes me?”

“You sound like a book,” I say.

“I was a doctor before all this happened,” he says. “Ten years of study. A hundred thousand dollars in tuition. All that so I could patch people up with whatever supplies we manage to hold on to or find. It’s been rough lately, what with morphine and aspirin and bandages going missing. And some of our young recruits haven’t been coming back in recent days. We’re used to dealing with walkers, but it’s been quite some time since we’ve had to deal with…rival groups.”

“We weren’t even trying to find you guys,” I say. “We don’t go looking for trouble. And you’re not gonna find us, so don’t even try.”

“You won’t find them either if you don’t stop talking shit,” says the guy with the shotgun. “Nobody here is interested in  finding anyone. My men are survivors because they take care of their own. Anyone comes to try and mess with that, we send them away. The smart ones walk back if they’re lucky. The dumb ones get a bed six feet under. Which of those do you want to be?”

I know what they’re trying to do. I won’t become one of them. Lilly told the same lies to Clem when she wanted Clem to join her group. If I hadn’t been locked up behind metal bars, I would have run out in front of Clem and killed Lilly with her own gun right then and there. I wish I could do the same to this guy right now. Clem says Lilly used to be nice. I never saw any of that. If this guy with the big shotgun used to have a son, why don’t I see anything in his face that makes him look like a parent?

Because he’s dead on the inside. Whatever they used to have in the old world only lives inside people’s heads, now. Like in Clem’s memories. And there’s no going back. That means I have to kill this guy. But not until I get what I came for and bring it back to Clem.

“My mom got bit by a walker,” I say. “On her leg. I chopped it off. She lived. I know some people do and some people don’t. But she made it. And now she needs something to replace her wooden leg so she can run from walkers without having to worry about her leg breaking.”

“Interesting,” says the doctor. He stands up.

“What’s your name?” says the guy with the shotgun.

“AJ,” I say.

“AJ,” he says. He lifts his shotgun and holds it upright against his shoulder. “That’s a strong name. I bet it stands for something good. Maybe even something brave. You’re a clever little man, AJ. Your stories are so good that I almost believe them. You and my son would have gotten along great. But there’s just one problem.”

“Curtis,” says the doctor.

“Don’t tell this kid my fucking name,” says Curtis. “I don’t want him getting notions in his head. We need to know what his group calls him so we have leverage. Look around, AJ. We have enough men and guns and ammo to withstand several walker herds. A ragtag group like yours, a group of bandits disguised as a trading caravan…dead before the fighting even starts. Now, I know you’re smart—to an extent—because you found your way into our base without getting caught. Fair enough. But your friends, well, I can’t be too sure how smart they might be. I let you go back to them, you might get to telling them that there’s a way for them to sneak around like you did and take whatever they like. And there’s no way I’m gonna let that happen.”

Because he’s a monster. His son is dead and now he’s dead, too. I think I’d be the same way if I didn’t have Clem to look out for me. She can’t do that if she’s dead.

“Clementine,” I say. “My mom’s name is Clementine.”

“Cute name,” says the doctor. “We’ll be sure to talk to her first if she comes here looking for you.”

The handle of my own gun slamming down onto my forehead is the last thing I see.


	14. Clementine

I wake to a footless leg that weighs as much as a block of ice and isn’t much warmer. Our seven little candles have turned into swimming pools of watery wax keeping flickering flames afloat. Omar gives us the last of the bear meat to keep our growling stomachs busy digesting all that chewy sawdust. If we want to keep this place warm and not freeze to death, we’ll have to sacrifice some of the wooden furniture to make a fire pit. That baby crib’s bars are a good place to start whether Ruby likes it or not. If the heat draws walkers, we’ll just have to live with it. Emphasis on the living part.

Outside, a door creaks open. Ruby crouches down—she looks relieved at the prospect of not having to pull the crib apart. Omar puts his finger up to his lips and lies flat against the floor. Too quiet to be walkers. Maybe someone found us. There’s a knock on our door.

“It’s me. Louis. Open up. Aasim’s hurt.”

Ruby jumps up out of her hiding spot and unlocks the door with surprising speed. Louis and Aasim stumble inside. Aasim falls to the floor. His hip is covered in blood that runs all the way down the left leg of his jeans. Ruby undoes his zipper and yanks his pants down to his knees.

“Oh, lord,” says Ruby. “This doesn’t look good. We need to get that shrapnel out of your hip and stitch it up. And we need to be quick about it so it doesn’t get infected.”

“What kind of infected?” says Louis.

“The regular kind,” says Ruby. “Unless you ran into walkers.”

“We didn’t see any of those,” murmurs Aasim. “Just people.”

“People?” I say.

Ruby guides Aasim to the floor. I move to the door to signal AJ inside—there’s nobody out in the train station.

“Clem, can you help me use this pen to start digging out his shrapnel?” says Ruby. “Omar, I’ll need you to heat it up with one of those candles. A knife sure would make this a lot easier.”

“AJ has my knife,” I say. “You can use it as soon as he gets in here. Where is he?”

“Clem, we, uh…” begins Louis.

“You’ve lost too much blood, sweetheart,” Ruby says to Aasim. “We might just have to take you back to the school to get you some of that morphine we left behind. That’s where my tweezers are, too.”

“I’m sorry I forgot to bring that stuff,” says Louis. “I guess I was distracted with everything that was going on.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” says Ruby. “We’ll make do with what we have. Now, you hold still, papa.”

“Louis would forget his head if it weren’t attached,” I say. “You couldn’t even be bothered to bring your bow back with you. Did you forget AJ, too?”

“I, uh…”

“He dropped his bow so he could help me run from the guys that ambushed us,” says Aasim.

“Ambushed you?” I say. “Where? Louis said the hospital was abandoned a long time ago and nobody goes there because it’s locked down.”

Louis looks down at his leather boot as he taps it against the floor. Ruby glances up at him with a frown. Louis stops.

“I took us to Hancock first,” he says. “I knew of a house there guaranteed to have supplies just in case the hospital was a bust. We got a little loud and a guy jumped us.”

I tighten the straps holding my wooden leg against my shin until my stump hurts.

“Where’s AJ?” I say.

“AJ took the guy down,” says Louis. “You’d be proud of him. That’s when a sniper started shooting at us from the trees and we had to engage in evasive maneuvers. I told AJ to follow me but he wouldn’t listen, not even after I reminded him that you wouldn’t want him to go alone.”

“I swear to god I’m going to fucking kill you,” I say. “The only reason I let him go with you was because you said you would look out for him. You did the exact fucking opposite.  Where is he? ”

“He fired that guy’s rifle to give us enough time to get away,” says Aasim. “I thought he would follow us, but he ran in the opposite direction. I’m sorry I couldn’t go after him, Clem. My hip almost gave out on me before I even got to the woods.”

“Bullshit,” I say. “AJ wouldn’t leave you if people were shooting at you. That’s not what I taught him.”

And that’s not what Javi taught me when he stuck around to help me fight off those assholes who ambushed us and killed his niece Mariana. He stayed with me instead of fleeing to safety with his family. He had my back and I had his. But we still had to bury Mariana. And I’ll be damned if anyone in this room is ever going to help me bury AJ.

I stand up. My wooden leg wobbles.

“He must have gone to the hospital,” I say. “That’s where you were supposed to go. That’s where  I’m going.”

“Without a gun?” says Ruby. “Violet used up all your bullets.”

I check the magazine. Ruby’s wrong.

“There’s still one left,” I say. “Say what you want about Violet, Louis, but at least  she listened to me. She saved one for herself. And if I don’t find AJ, I might not need more than one, either. Where’s your bow?”

“Somewhere in Hancock,” says Louis. “Not far from the southern gate.”

“Those orange fucking wheels, man,” says Aasim. “Ow. Ow. Fuck.”

“Hold still, sugar,” says Ruby. She’s got a bloody pen pressed against his hip. Omar holds a candle to it. “This is gonna hurt.”

“No fucking shit,” says Aasim.

“Language,” says Ruby.

“Sorry,” says Aasim.

“I’ll go back with you,” Louis says to me.

“No offense, Louis, but fuck you.” I shove my gun into my jeans. “This is my problem, now. Not anyone else’s. If I don’t find AJ, I’m not coming back.”

Louis opens his mouth. I silence him with my finger.

“Not a word,” I say. “Once Ruby gets Aasim fixed up, I want you and Omar to carry him back to the school so Ruby can give him that morphine. If you’re quick, quiet, and smart about it, you should be able to handle any walkers that were dumb enough to stick around.”

“If they haven’t been blown up by any more of those goddamn bomb traps,” says Aasim.

“Isn’t the school still dangerous?” says Omar. “And what about bandits?”

“Nobody will think to look for you in a burned down, blown up school with dead walkers everywhere,” I say. “And if living walkers give you problems, you’ll have plenty of buildings to hide in. It’s better than sitting around here and waiting to die.”

I step through the open door.

“Don’t follow me,” I say. “If I don’t come back, don’t go looking for me. That’s how we got into all this trouble in the first place. Stay away from cities. Stay away from people.”

“That caravan—” says Omar.

“—was wishful thinking,” I say. “We should have known better.”

I slam the door behind me—sorry about the noise—and head out into the falling snow between thick-trunked trees with only a single bullet to keep me safe.

“Clem, wait,” says Louis.

I don’t stop walking. A hand is on my shoulder. I turn around and clench my fist so I don’t backhand him.

“You can’t do this by yourself,” says Louis. “It’s suicide. You know that.”

“No, I don’t,” I say. “I let AJ go off without me.  I have to take responsibility for the consequences of that decision. So if I die, it’s not suicide—it’s fate. A fate I embrace willingly.”

“I don’t mean to sound sappy, but I care about you,” he says. “So do the others. That includes Violet.”

“If you love someone, let them go,” I say. “Sound familiar?”

Louis looks down at the ground. I set one hand on his shoulder.

“Look, Louis,” I say. “I won’t hold you responsible for losing AJ. I don’t blame him or Willy for burning down the school. None of that matters anymore. Willy sacrificed himself for us. Anything less than that means about as much as a passing cloud up in the sky. I’ll find AJ, one way or another. Don’t you worry about me. Worry about yourself. Maybe we should be friends again before I go.”

“We never stopped being friends,” says Louis.

I put my arms around him. He wraps me up in his. His hair smells like birch trees and bowstring wax. We hug like that for a long time. When he draws away, I kiss him on the cheek.

“If this is goodbye,” I say, “that’s how you should remember me.”

Louis smiles and shakes his head.

“We’ll see you and AJ back at the school,” he says. He steps back and points at me with two fingers. “I expect nothing less from you.”

I make my way through endless trees, following Louis and Aasim’s blood-flecked footsteps as well as I can over rolling hills and snow-hidden chunks of ice that almost send me stumbling to the ground more than once. The further I go, the easier it becomes to follow the trail of blood. It doesn’t even look like they tried to kick snow over it. I guess I can’t blame them for not slowing down. Aasim looked pretty pale. Where the heck did they sleep? Maybe they didn’t sleep at all. I won’t either. I’ve got fire in my veins. If I have to stay up all day and all night to find AJ, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

I don’t keep track of how long it takes me to get to the edge of the forest just outside Hancock. I check the tree line for movement, then sprint through the half-open gate as fast as I can and throw myself to the ground next to a huge pool of blood that looks like the cherry snow cones dad used to buy me at the county fair. Something stinks—the body of a dead man. He must be the one who ambushed Louis and Aasim and AJ. I don’t see a second body anywhere, so that sniper might still be active. If he is, I don’t have anything other than this rotting wooden leg to deal with him at long range.

I lift myself up onto my elbows and scan the trees again. Still nothing. Not far from my jacket sleeve, something orange peeks through the snow. Louis’s bow. He covered it up, at least, so they wouldn’t find it right away and take it. His quiver has ten snow-damp arrows. That’ll have to be enough for whoever I come across on my way to finding AJ.

His little footprints lead west away from the southern gate. He didn’t go between the houses because he knew it would be better to make distance between himself and that sniper. Hiding would just give the sniper time to reposition and set up again. Looks like he zig-zagged, too, to make himself harder to hit. Good. I follow his steps all the way to the western gate. From the looks of it, he must have been able to squeeze through these narrow bars. I’m skinny, but not that skinny, so I’m going to have to expose myself to enemy fire and pray that these metal spikes don’t catch on any of my clothing.

They don’t, but I do nearly lose my grip on the metal bars as I slide down them into the snow on the other side of the gate. I haul myself up to my feet and race through the open field into the woods where I take a moment to catch my breath and scan for movement. I haven’t even taken three steps when I spot a stream of mist coming from behind one of the thin birch trees twenty paces away. I duck behind a fat oak trunk and wait for the mist to stop. Sure enough, it comes out in another stream that cuts itself off when the guy hiding behind the tree closes his mouth to muffle his cough. That was his last mistake.

I take a handful of snow and put it in my mouth to mask my own misty breath. I nock an arrow on Louis’s bow and walk in a wide arc around the birch tree, hoping that this guy keeps his head turned away long enough for me to get an angle on him. I draw the bowstring back and the guy turns just in time to watch my flying arrow pierce right through his fucking throat. He drops his gun into the snow and goes down onto his knees, clutching his bloody neck in both hands and making gurgling sounds I learned to ignore a long time ago. I run up to him, yank his knife out of its leather belt sheath, and drive it into his temple. His eyes become glass as I jerk the blade out of his head and let him fall to the ground like a sack of peaches.

His rifle is military-grade and pretty heavy. I don’t know if I trust myself to carry it on this shitty wooden leg. I’m not good enough at sniping to be able to handle an entire group holed up in a fortified hospital. Yeah, an entire group, because that’s the opposite of what Louis told me. If they have more eyes on the woods than just this guy, I can’t be seen with one of their weapons. They’ll never believe I’m one of them, not with this leg. I’ll have to stick with the bow for now. Aasim’s right about these orange wheels, though. They’re getting painted a different color when this is all over.

AJ’s footprints veer off to the left at a big group of spindly, leafless bushes. Whoever set those bear traps on the path to the right didn’t do a very good job of hiding them. Good eyes, kiddo. When the snow starts to slope upward, I keep myself low to the ground. AJ’s footprints lose themselves in a bunch of bigger boot marks. I should have known. Looks like they might have found him out here and brought him inside. Or maybe they found his footprints after the fact and that’s why there was a guy in these woods waiting to see whether anyone else would show up. Either way, my best bet is that building as big as our dormitory behind those brick walls topped with barbed wire. They have concrete traffic barriers set up in front of the gap between the walls like they expect vehicles to come at them. Of course they do. I get it now. They’re at war with another organized group, like they always are, and Hancock is the designated neutral zone they use as an excuse to start shit with each other. Anyone else who shows up—like us—gets robbed or killed. Can’t have survivors living in peace with one another. That would make life way too fucking easy.

If anyone has eyes on me, they’re not showing themselves. I don’t have time for this shit. I run out into the open and throw myself behind the first concrete barrier. It’s way too quiet. There’s no gun waiting for me on the other side of the brick wall to my right. Same story on my left. In fact, there’s nobody out here warming themselves up around all these metal barrels just standing there with fires burning inside them. All these canvas medical tents seem to be empty, too—no, I see them. That’s where they’re hiding: under blankets and in sleeping bags surrounded by tipped over glass bottles. They must have raided a settlement that had a booze supply and now they’re sleeping off their celebration. With any luck, the guys inside the main building will be sleeping, too.

These tall doors and their tall handles are probably going to make some noise. Might as well open them like I belong here and see whether anyone responds. There’s the gun I was expecting, resting on the lap of a guy in sunglasses sitting in a plastic chair under a neon amber light. I can’t tell whether he’s asleep or daydreaming, so I decide to make him dead with a knife to the throat, then to his temple while he’s choking on his blood. I drag his body behind the trio of open-mouthed barrels to our right and hide behind them while the coast clears. I lift my shirt over my nose—his blood smells like ashes and assholes. Fortunately, his blood trail isn’t all that visible in these dim lights. There’s a reception desk at the foot of twin staircases leading to the second floor. The directory above the desk has arrows pointing every which way, but I only need one of them: the infirmary. That’s where AJ would go to look for medical supplies. I know, because I sat with him through long winter days while he read every single army and sports manual he could find in the headmaster’s office. I just hope his reading skills didn’t get him into too much trouble.

Nobody else in sight. I keep close to the wall with my bow drawn. My damp wooden leg doesn’t make too much noise against the hard floor as long as I don’t move too fast. Here we go: the infirmary. I open the doors slowly, quietly, into a room as big as an airplane hangar filled with piles of stone rubble and scrap metal and drum barrels with fires burning inside them and the remnants of hallways that weave between collapsed office rooms and cubicles divided by shoddy partition walls. Floodlights overhead brighten the entire space well enough to see as if we were outside just as the sun is starting to go down. I can’t imagine what kind of power supply they must have if they can afford to waste electricity on empty refrigerators in a gated community a mile away. All this space, too, and nobody around to use it except for one person who appears to be sleeping in a desk chair next to a table full of bandages, little bottles, and metal instruments. That’s a whole bunch of medical supplies we could use. I just have to make sure that person in the chair isn’t waiting for me to wake him up.

I creep up on him with slow, soundless steps, looking around as I do to make sure nobody is watching and waiting. I nock an arrow and pull back the bowstring—

It’s AJ. They’ve got him tied down to a chair. Did they sedate him? He wouldn’t be drooling from the corner of his mouth otherwise. Shit. His teeth and tongue are covered in blood and there’s a nasty gash on the left side of his head that runs from his eyebrow to his ear. It’s the kind of gash you get when someone hits you with a sharp-edged object. Whoever’s keeping him here can’t even be bothered to stitch him up with the string on the table right next to him. He needs to see Ruby as soon as we get the hell out of here. I’ll do it myself in the woods if I have to.

Footsteps sound in a roofless hallway. I run back to a tipped over file cabinet, jump behind it, and lie flat on my stomach. I hope whoever this is didn’t hear my wooden leg over his own footsteps. There’s enough concrete and metal debris here to hide me from this guy while I watch him.

“Let’s have another look at that tongue of yours, young man,” says a guy in a white lab coat. “Not bad, considering. Can’t spend any of our priority supplies on it, so we’ll have to go with cotton swabs until it heals up.”

I’m about to vomit. This guy is tall, pale, and his eyes are ringed with red. Does he inject stuff into his arm and sleep for hours at a time, too? Doctor Lingard and his drug habit are dead but his twin brother seems to be alive and well. He even hums to himself while he stuffs AJ’s mouth full of gunk that isn’t exactly white—of course they’re fucking  used cotton swabs. He doesn’t even care that he’s going to make AJ sick or worse. I roll onto my back, pick up my bow, sit on my ass, and line up an arrow on this guy. Doctors are scarce, but there’s an even shorter supply of the number of fucks I give.

“Get those dirty swabs out of his mouth and stitch his head,” I say.

The doctor looks for me with skewed eyes that seem to drift apart when he finds me. I’m guessing he wore glasses back when you could actually fucking find them. He needs to stop staring and start taking care of the defenseless child he has strapped into a chair.

“Do you want this arrow sticking out of one of your eye sockets?” I say.

“All right,” he says. He turns back to AJ and opens AJ’s mouth. “I’ll stay calm. Maybe you could do the same while I work on him.”

He picks the bloodied cotton from AJ’s mouth with his bare fingers. I release the tension from my bowstring arm so my muscles can rest.

“What happened to him was an unfortunate accident,” he says. “He wandered in here while our men were working with sheet metal. Ran right into it and broke open his—”

“Don’t you have any gloves or tweezers you can use?” I say.

He half-turns to face me. I draw the arrow back in the bowstring faster and louder than I should. He goes back to working on AJ. I let the string go slack.

“I’m guessing you’re not from around here,” he says. He’s using a scrap of linen to take out AJ’s cotton swabs, at least. “How long have you been in town? So to speak. The reason I ask is you look old enough to know better. We haven’t had medical gloves in six, maybe seven years. I’ll be lucky to find a sterile needle for the stitches. Any place with supplies, even a military hospital, was picked clean long ago.”

“Just stop talking and fix him up or you’re going to have an accident like you say he did.”

“His name is AJ, I’ll have you know. You must be Clementine.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

Something hard presses up against the back of my head. Shit. I didn’t even hear him walk up to me.

“Put your little toy down or what happens next ain’t gonna be no fuckin’ accident.”

His voice sounds like the gravel mixing trucks that used to come and repair the potholes in the street in front of our house. I set the bow and arrow down on top of the filing cabinet in front of me along with my half-full quiver. The doctor—or whatever he thinks he is—finishes taking all the gunk out of AJ’s mouth. He picks up a piece of metal that’s leaning against one of the barrel drums and slaps the end of it against his palm while he sizes up a little boy who can’t do anything to him.

“What are you doing?” I say. “Don’t hurt him! He’s already hurt!”

“Shut your mouth and stand up,” says the guy behind me. “I don’t need you making a move for that bow.”

I’ve gotten a lot better at getting up onto my feet, considering that one of them is made of wood and strapped to my leg with a leather belt. That doesn’t make it any less of a pain in the ass when the blood rushes down into my stump, leaving me lightheaded and dizzy. I have focus to keep myself from grabbing at the filing cabinet for balance. That might make this guy think I’m reaching for my bow. While I’m flailing, he takes my handgun and knife out of my waistband. The gun’s magazine slides out. Somewhere in the distance, something hits the floor. He must have tossed everything he just took from me.

“What the hell happened to your leg?” he says.

They’ll hurt AJ if they don’t like what I say. Or maybe they’ll hurt him no matter what. I can’t give them an excuse, though.

“A walker bit my leg,” I say as I steady myself. “He chopped it off.”

I point at AJ. His head is hanging down against his shoulder. He’s drooling all over his coat.

“Who, that little guy? Maybe we’d better not mess with him, huh, Doc?”

The doctor lets the thick, metal rod in his hand hang down at his side. The bottom of the rod is long and flat like the twisted head of a golf club.

“Perhaps that story about coming here to trade has some truth to it,” says the doctor.

Something hard is against the back of my head. Probably this asshole’s gun.

“What I meant to say, Doc, was that if this kid’s such a badass, maybe his mom’s even worse. What’s that shit holding up your wooden leg? Take it off.”

“I need that to walk,” I say.

“Yeah, that’s the fucking point.”

I slide the end of the belt through the buckle and take the metal latch out of the belt hole. The pressure against the back of my head subsides. Maybe he lowered his gun. Or maybe that’s what he wants me to think.

It doesn’t matter what I think. I won’t let him hurt AJ. Not while I’m alive.

As soon as the belt comes loose, I pretend to lose my balance. I turn around with my wooden leg in both hands and swing it against the shit-eating smile on this asshole’s face as hard as I can. His smile disappears as the wood bounces off his skull and drops him to the ground. I land on his chest with my knees, knocking the wind out of him and making him puke up phlegm all over his sleeveless shirt. I lift my wooden leg to smash his head like we do with walkers, but unlike walkers, he’s aiming a shotgun at me. He flexes his chest muscles to throw me off balance, that’s how fucking strong he is. I fall down to his left just as he fires. The bullet makes a bunch of zinging sounds on the other side of the filing cabinet.

Please don’t be hit, AJ. Please be okay.

I can’t rip this guy’s shotgun away from his muscled arms, so I bite into his trigger finger instead, drawing blood that runs into the gaps between my teeth and down my chin. He screams the same way I’ve heard people do when walkers rip open their stomachs. I let go of his finger just in time to catch his eyes fixating on something behind me—I roll off of him and narrowly avoid the doctor’s overhand blow with that length of metal. It hits the guy’s right elbow, instead, weakening his grip on the shotgun just enough for me to take control of it. I aim for the doctor’s chest as he winds up another swing and pull the trigger.

The doctor’s chest explodes, sending a spray of blood all over my face and jean jacket. My ears are ringing so loud that I don’t hear the doctor hit the concrete next to us. His blood runs out from his stomach all over the floor. It seeps into this guy’s shirt and pants. He stares at me as I try to yank the shotgun away from his stubborn arms.

“Drop the gun,” I say. “Nobody else has to die.”

“Fuck you,” he says.

I try once more to pull the shotgun away from him, but even with a bruised skull and a gaping finger wound, he’s still stronger than me.

“My squad is already inbound,” he says. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“No,” I say, “they’re not. The ones who aren’t sleeping off their alcohol aren’t going to wake up at all. I made sure of that.”

“You fucking bitch.”

I get up on my right knee and drive my left knee into his groin. He howls in pain. Not so strong, now. I still have to do it twice more before he gives up the gun. My stump feels like it’s on fire. I flip the shotgun around and smash the butt against his nose just in case he was thinking about getting up. He covers his bloody face with both hands. I stand up with the shotgun in one hand and my wooden leg in the other. He isn’t going anywhere. I strap on my leg while keeping an eye on him. He doesn’t move. I sling my quiver and bow over my shoulder, grab the metal rod from the dead doctor’s pale and lifeless hand, and walk with my new shotgun to check on AJ.

No bites, no bullet holes. Just a cut-open head and a bloody tongue. For whatever reason, these guys thought he needed to be tied up in a fucking chair like he’s not just a six-year-old boy whose mother died holding him in her arms. And I was the one who pulled the trigger. I walk back to the guy lying on the floor and stand over him far enough away that he can’t grab at me.

“You know my name,” I say. “What’s yours?”

“Why do you give a fuck?” he says.

I point the shotgun at him.

“My gun doesn’t give a fuck, but I do. What’s your name?”

“Curtis.”

“Why would you threaten a little boy who’s bound and unconscious with a metal rod, Curtis?”

“Lawson, the guy whose blood you got all over you, was going to trade you a metal leg for your kid’s empty gun if you weren’t assholes about it. I told Lawson it was a stupid idea. Looks like I was right. We should have killed you both as soon as we saw you.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that you had good intentions after what you did to AJ? After what you almost did to me?”

“You did it to yourself. Most people are just trying to survive. You go looking for snakes, don’t act surprised when you get bitten.”

“Everything’s a snake, Curtis. That’s the problem. Do you have any kids?”

“What the fuck kind of question is that?”

I point the shotgun at his head.

“The kind you should answer,” I say.

“Not anymore,” he says. “I had a son like your boy, once. He went out hunting one day and came back a walker. Shot him right in the head. Wasn’t any different than putting a gun to my own head. Never thought straight again after that. Ain’t no place for kids in this world. Or bleeding hearts. So quit with this ‘getting to know you’ shit and do what you came here to do. If you ain’t got the stomach for it, I’ll make sure you turn out just like me. You’ll never get see your boy grow into a man.”

I stand over him with the barrels of his own shotgun pointed at his bloody face and broken nose. Curtis curls the fingers of his right hand into a fist. Maybe he wants to flip me off. Maybe he wants to punch me. He was a father once, like Lee would have been if he had lived long enough to see his own children. Instead, the world took everything from him and left him to rot. I couldn’t let that happen to him. I didn’t want him to become a monster, so I took that burden from him and set it on my own shoulders. Which of us is the monster now, Curtis?

I’m the monster. It’s me. Not you, Curtis. Not that doctor friend of yours. Not Lee, not Kenny, not any of them. I’m the one who grew up in a world that takes every good thing you’ve ever had and swallows it up like it never existed. I’m the one who tries to pretend that we can live in peace and happiness in a world that’s only a shadow of what it once was. And in that shadow are people like me, clinging in vain to our humanity in the hope that other people don’t forget theirs.

I turn my head away and pull the trigger. Blood pools around my wooden leg. I don’t look any further than that. I’m not going to have any memory of what I did here so I don’t have anything to hide from AJ. In fact, I didn’t do this at all. The doctor did. I lay the shotgun to rest in his limp arms. When his friends wake up and come in here, they’ll talk about how there must have been a struggle. Curtis must have betrayed them. He knifed the guy at the door. They should have known better than to let their guard down and be soft, even for one night.

I find my knife in AJ’s coat pocket—they didn’t take it from him—and cut the ropes that bind him. These medical supplies belong in my pockets. Nobody in here needs them anymore. I’ll fix him up when we get far enough into the woods that only a fool would make the effort to follow us. I won’t have him waking up to this. I’ll be damned if he has to look at any more dead bodies today, least of all the ones we made because we had to. Assholes with guns who run fucked up communities pull the same shit every single time, but I’m not going to let that turn him into a monster. I’m going to tell AJ I found him in the woods with a cut in his head from where a tree branch fell on top of him. I carried him in my arms all the way home. Aunt Ruby fixed him up just in time for a nice dinner of snow hare stew. And when we go to sleep, I’ll keep my dark secret hidden deep within my dreams where nobody will ever find it.


	15. Clementine

This hospital, a place where people once went to patch up their wounds and recover from illness, is now home to people who no longer suffer from ailments of any kind because they’re dead. As I carry AJ through its long, amber-lit halls, I can’t help but think that maybe it should have stayed empty all these years. The assholes that took it over after it was abandoned ended up using it for anything but its intended purpose. What do you think they’d have to say for themselves if someone like me showed up and stuck a knife in their throats while they slept? Nothing, just like the people they murdered for the wretched crime of scavenging for food. The dead have no words. They don’t need them anymore. Neither do I. Waves of calm wash over me and drive fear from my heart down into the snow that crunches beneath my boots.

The keepers and watchmen of this concrete fortress lie vulnerable in their tents while they snore winter’s icy crystals into their lungs and piss their pants to keep themselves warm. I’ve seen this scene so many times before: groups kill each other until there’s nobody left to die. Walkers sweep through to take the ones that haven’t already turned. Here we are, AJ, you and I, walking together through a lifeless, barren wasteland of winter’s finest snow. Never mind that you’re in my arms and we’re only alone because anyone who isn’t dead is sleeping. They say sleep is the cousin of death. Maybe these men were just waiting for someone to come and relieve them of the burden of having to live in a world that’s gone to shit.

AJ moans in his sleep. I hope he isn’t having a nightmare.

“I’m sorry, AJ,” I whisper to him. “I shouldn’t talk like that. Let’s just get you home.”

For every footprint I leave behind, the wind whips just as much snow into my face. I can’t afford to slow down and cover up my tracks. The men sleeping in their tents might wake up at any moment and notice the fresh boot marks leading from the hospital building out to the gates of their little kingdom. I’m sorry, Louis. You did what you thought was right and Aasim is still alive because of that. AJ did what he thought was right and might have died for it. The difference is that AJ did what he thought I wanted him to do. That’s why it’s my responsibility. I hope you understand. So I had to do what  I thought was right. Three people died for it. I should be happy that it wasn’t any of us, but I don’t feel anything, just the bitter cold turning my heart into ice.

We once crossed a river like this, AJ. You were only a few days old. We were doing all right until walkers decided to join us. That’s when everything went to shit. But this time, there aren’t any walkers. I can’t tell whether it’s too cold for them to move. I honestly don’t know whether I can even feel my own fingers. At least we can’t leave footprints behind on frozen water. But this wooden leg is starting to make cracks in the ice, so we’d better get back in the snow. We’re far enough away now that I can stop and put fresh gauze on that wound of yours and tape it on nice and tight. There. All ready to go again. You’re pretty light compared to all this other stuff I’m carrying. If it gets too heavy for me to bear, you can bet I’ll leave it here. But not you. Never you.

“Are you awake, AJ?”

Nothing. Still sleeping. His coat rises and falls as he breathes softly into my neck. He’ll wake up when we get back. Soon enough, I find Louis and Aasim’s footsteps. Aasim’s blood trail must be hiding under a fresh layer of snow. Good. My footsteps blend in with theirs so well that nobody will be able to tell who went to the hospital to kill people and who went to Hancock to find food for empty bellies. And if our path goes untouched long enough, the wind will fill it in with snow and nobody will know or remember that we were ever here.

But what if it doesn’t? What if nature doesn’t run its course? What if nature doesn’t give a shit? I wish Lee were here so I could ask him what to do. He’d probably tell me not to dwell on the past, that I should keep moving forward. He’d tell me to think about…to think about how Omar’s going to take this metal rod that looks like a beat-up golf club and turn it into a leg for me. His father was an industrial welder who used heat and metal to make frames for storage buildings back before walkers came and made welding something you did to keep brain-dead dumbasses from killing you. I bet Omar can make me a metal leg that’ll help me walk through snow and climb the ladder up to the lookout tower. I’ll be able to look out for the group and watch over AJ while he goes off hunting with Louis and Aasim. He’s old enough now. And we’ll need his help. That’s what I’ll do. But not just that. I’ll do a whole lot more than that. I’m not going to lie around in bed all day anymore. Not after this.

I’ve thought of a thousand and one things I can do to make the school a better place to live in by the time we reach the metal gate under the lookout tower Willy used to stand in so often. He did that for us, and so we owe it to him to make our stand here, to make this our home. I reach through the bars and fumble with the latch inside the gate until it opens. The courtyard is empty. Did the others come back? They might be hiding. Maybe Violet’s hiding with them. Or maybe Violet’s hiding so well that we’ll never find her.

I didn’t realize how heavy AJ is. My thoughts carried me all the way here and now I have to carry them. I need to sit down and rest. My arms are tired. AJ can sleep in my lap for as long as he needs to while I wash the blood from my face with this snow.

“Clem?”

His eyes are open. The blood under his head wound’s dressing seems to have clotted. I clean the dried, red streaks from his face with a handful of fresh snow. He shivers and climbs to his feet.

“What happened?” he says.

The administration building is in ruins: bricks lie in heaps in the charred and splintered remains of the building’s wooden framework. Only the concrete steps that lead up to the entrance doors still stand, along with the pillars that hold up the little roof overlooking them. This isn’t a school anymore. Marlon’s dirty t-shirt flying from the flagpole says as much. It’s a fortress built on the bodies of those who came before us and didn’t live to see as many days as we have.

“We made it home,” I say.

He holds his hand against his head.

“Feels like I just woke up from a dream,” he says.

“I know what you mean,” I say.

AJ walks on ahead of me. I take off Louis’s bow and his quiver of arrows. My gun and its single bullet got left behind somewhere in that hospital infirmary along with my knife. Let them rest in peace wherever they lie.

“They’re giving Willy a funeral,” AJ says to me.

“Who’s giving him a funeral?” I say.

“Everyone,” says AJ. “Come see.”

I haul myself up on legs that ache with fire and a spine that’s turned to ice. AJ holds on to my jacket as we walk to where the western wall turns left and leads to the marked graves of those who rest in peace whether we loved them or hated them. I get a face full of leather coat.

“Clem,” says Louis. “We were just about to go out looking for you.”

“Well, you found me,” I say.

I bury my face in his coat as he hugs me. AJ tugs on my pants. Louis releases me and goes down on one knee with his hand on AJ’s shoulder.

“You were brave,” says Louis. “Braver than I was. I want you to know that.”

AJ looks over Louis’s shoulder: Ruby and Omar stand with their heads bowed in front of a fresh pile of dirt.

“I wasn’t as brave as Willy,” says AJ. “I wanna pay my respects.”

“Yeah,” I say. My voice is getting shaky. “You should go do that.”

“You gonna come with me, Clem?” he says.

“For what it’s worth,” says Louis, “I’m glad to see both of you again.”

“Willy can’t say the same,” I say. “I need to go apologize to him.”

“I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you, too, Clem,” says Louis.

AJ leads me by the hand to the mound of dirt marked with a wooden cross bearing Willy’s name. I kneel down in front of his resting place. My wooden leg bites into the back of my jeans. My knee is on fire with icy cold. Good. I deserve it.

“My mom used to say a prayer with me every night before I went to bed,” I say. “I don’t remember the words anymore or what they meant or even why we said them. I just hope that, wherever you are, you’re with Tenn and Brody living a better life than the short one this world gave you. We’ll see you again some day, all of us, in one of those pictures Tenn liked to draw.”

Before I can start crying, hands are under my shoulders lifting me to my feet. Ruby turns me around and gives me a bear hug that hurts my ribs. Omar sets his arm on my shoulders and smiles at me.

“I think Willy would like that,” says Omar.

“You think so?” I say.

“Willy looked up to you,” says Ruby. “He wanted to prove to you how brave he was.”

I hang my head.

“He didn’t need to prove anything,” I say. “Where’s Aasim?”

“Resting in our dormitory bedroom,” says Ruby. “All patched up and high as a kite on morphine.”

A stifled laugh comes out of my mouth before I can catch it. Louis smiles at me. Ruby kneels down and checks AJ’s head wound.

“Your bandaging skills are pretty good,” she says. “We’ll get that stitched up as soon as we’re done here.”

AJ puts his hand to the gauze taped over the cut on his head. He tries to feel beneath it but Ruby takes his fingers away.

“How did that happen?” says AJ.

“Well,” I say, “I found you out in the woods by a tree trunk next to a fallen branch. The snow must have been so heavy that it snapped the branch right off. And there you were, standing beneath it.”

“I don’t remember that,” says AJ.

“When you get knocked out,” I say, “you lose a lot of your memories. Right, Louis?”

Louis blinks at me and raises his eyebrows. AJ looks up at him.

“Yeah, AJ,” says Louis. “That’s right. I used to play football with Marlon. One day, we were practicing right before lunch and I got knocked out cold. When I came to, the only thing I remembered was getting out of bed that morning.”

“Marlon,” says AJ.

He stares at Louis for a bit, then looks to me. He eyes fall to my military jacket and the dried blood stains all over it. Guess I forgot about those. He walks up to me and touches one of the red spots with his fingers. He rubs his thumb against his fingertips: nothing.

“Thanks for coming to look for me, Clem,” he says. “I’m glad you found me under that tree. Ruby, I think I’m ready to get my head stitched up now. What…ugh. What is that smell? Are there still walkers here?”

“No,” says Violet, “just me.”

She steps out from the rubble not far from the graveyard. She’s covered in dirt and leaves and walker guts so rancid that Ruby and Omar have to put their shirts up over their noses. AJ pinches his nose shut. I turn away and cough into my jacket sleeve.

“What did you do?” AJ asks with his nose pinched.

“A skunk sprayed me,” Violet says. “On purpose. I chased it with a stick until it took a shit-shower all over me. Apparently walkers really fucking hate that smell. I herded them east of here, way out past that neighborhood with the golf courses. I don’t think they’ll be coming back here any time soon.”

“You’d think skunks would hibernate this time of year,” says Louis.

“Yeah, you’d think assholes would hibernate, too,” says Violet. “It doesn’t matter, since they’ll probably avoid the smell of asshole. I would.”

Violet holds her arm and hangs her head. She looks away from me.

“I wouldn’t,” I say.

I grab her jacket and pull her into me. I try not to cough my lungs up all over her face as I take her lips against mine. Her breath doesn’t smell that bad. I kiss her until she can’t breathe. She pushes me away.

“I smell like shit,” she says.

“Yeah, and you look like shit, too,” I say. “That’s what happens every time you go off into the woods by yourself. You should probably stop doing that. Or at least take me with you.” I pull her in close to me. “I think you need a bath. In the river. Maybe I could help you.”

Violet’s eyes go wide. She stops moving like she’s a snowman frozen in place. A snowman that looks and smells like shit, but I’ll take responsibility for building it.

“I think I’m done here,” says Ruby. “What about you, Omar?”

“Yeah, I think I’ve said goodbye,” says Omar.

“Clem, I’m gonna go get my head stitched,” says AJ.

My eyes won’t leave Violet’s, not even to look at AJ when I talk to him.

“I found some medical supplies,” I say. “They’re in my pockets. There’s also a metal rod over by Louis’s bow and arrows. Looks like a golf club. Maybe you could turn it into a leg for me, Omar?”

“Sure thing,” says Omar. “That’ll give me a nice project to work on.”

AJ comes up to me and takes all the stuff out of my jacket pockets.

“Where’d you find all this?” he says.

“I don’t know,” I say.

He doesn’t ask me any more questions.

And neither does Violet when we head out to the river, just the two of us. We should be cautious and careful and on the lookout for threats, but if walkers can’t stand the smell of her and neither can bandits, I’ll just have to keep her all to myself. So when we get to the river, I help her undress, and she helps me. And in the freezing water, we keep each other warm—so warm that I forget everything else I’ve done today.

By the time we get back to the school—back to our home—the sun is almost in bed. The dormitory is still standing and so are the bedrooms. We’ve crammed ourselves into three of them. Aasim rests in Ruby’s room while he recovers from his hip wound. Louis helps Omar skin snow hares and cook their meat over a fire from a propane torch they found in the train station. Violet and I join AJ and Ruby around our stone-ringed campfire. Omar stops by with our evening dinner tray of snow hare stew and a cup of steaming hot coffee.

“Ruby told me to bring it for AJ,” he says.

Violet and I take our bowls, sit down on my bed, and eat in silence. Ruby waves her hand in front of her nose.

“This stew is a lot better than bear ass,” Violet says.

“Wish I could smell it,” I say.

“Maybe I need another bath tomorrow,” she says.

“Maybe you do,” I say.

Omar sets a length of metal on the dresser next to us.

“I hammered it into a much more manageable shape,” he says. “It should distribute the weight of your leg evenly. You can take it for a test run tomorrow. If you want, I can use that propane torch to weld some more material onto it and make it even stronger.”

“Don’t spend any more resources than we have to,” I say. “You’ve already done a great job and that’s good enough for me.”

“Thanks, Clem,” says Omar. “Let me know how it works out.”

Ruby blows on the hot coffee and holds it up to AJ’s mouth. He makes a face, swallows loudly, then burps right in Ruby’s face. She laughs.

“What do you think?” she says.

“It tastes like bear ass,” says AJ.

“Well, it’s for your headache,” says Ruby. “Thins the blood, too. You might have trouble sleeping which is just fine. I don’t want you asleep for more than three hours at a time. You got that, Clem? Violet? He needs to be up for fifteen minutes every three hours before he goes back to sleep. That’s the best way to deal with those concussion-like symptoms AJ got from that  tree branch that fell on him.”

Ruby winks at me where AJ can’t see her. Louis appears in the moonlight that floods in through our half-boarded up window and out onto the hallway floor.

“Just came by to say goodnight,” he says. “I’m really glad you’re around to hear me say that, by the way. Although, I will be happier when things are bit less…fragrant.”

“Keeps the walkers away, doesn’t it?” says Violet and swallows a spoonful of stew.

“That it does,” says Louis. “In any case, I propose we talk about what to do with all that rubble from the administration building tomorrow. I, for one, don’t exactly want to live in a place that looks like a trash pit.”

“People don’t show up to trash pits to scavenge for stuff,” says Violet.

“I agree with Louis,” says AJ. “I think we should clean that stuff up and use it to patch up the walls really good. The rest of it we can make look like a home again. I don’t wanna look around and be reminded that I live in a…trash pit…every day.”

“I suppose we’ll have a lot to talk about tomorrow,” says Ruby as she stands up. “You finish that coffee and rest your head. That means keeping the thinking to a minimum. You got me?”

“Yeah, Ruby,” says AJ. “I’ll try to not to think about stuff so much.”

Ruby walks past Louis where he stands in the door frame. Louis gives AJ a finger gun salute and winks at me.

“Smell you later,” he says and walks off.

Violet flips him the bird and gets up to close the door. My leg is killing me. I undo the straps, take it off, separate the wood from the leather, and toss the rotting rod of oak into our campfire. I set the leather next to the length of metal on top of the dresser. Violet sits back down next to me and sets her hand on my knee. The aching in my invisible ankle and foot fades.

“I can see when you do that,” AJ says to his coffee.

Violet takes her hand from my leg. I grab her wrist.

“You don’t have to hide it from me,” he says. “And I know I didn’t get hit by a tree branch. But I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter. I keep thinking about my mom and how’s she dead. I don’t even know what her face looks like. When I try to see her in my mind, I keep seeing your face instead, Clem. Even when I don’t want to. Like in my dreams.”

“I think about you, too,” I say. “Especially in my dreams. Even when they’re nightmares. But as long as you’re in them, I know I’ll be okay.”

I get up and use the dresser to hop to his bed so I can sit down right next to him. Violet sits down on the floor beside us with her knees bent and her head down.

“You shouldn’t sit on the floor, Violet,” says AJ. “I did the same thing when we first came here, but Clem showed me that the bed is more comfortable.”

I take Violet under her shoulders and lift her up onto the bed with us. She’s got this really weird look in her eyes like she’s never done this before. Maybe she hasn’t. She probably never sat together like this with her mom and dad.

“You said we can’t ever get rid of our trauma,” says AJ. “That’s why we need to do something to help us forget it. I think you use Violet to forget your trauma. That’s why you’re so close to her all the time. So I don’t think we should be friends anymore.”

“What?” I say. Heat races through my limbs. “What do you mean? Why not?”

“I see your face all the time because I think you’re how I forget my trauma,” says AJ. “It’s really weird that I would have trauma from a mother I’ve never seen. But I think…I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I think you’re supposed to be my mom, Clem.”

The fire in my veins cools into slowly flowing river water that makes its way up my arms and ribs and into my eyes where it comes out onto my cheeks.

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to be like,” AJ says. “And I don’t know if I’ll be able to listen to you all the time like Ruby says I’m supposed to, but I think—”

I lift him up from his stack of pillows and hold him tight against me as I cry into his shoulder. I’m shaking so hard that my ribs hurt.

“Don’t be sad, Clem,” AJ says.

“I’m not sad,” I say. “I’m happy.”

I kiss him on the cheek.

“That tickles,” he says. “No, I mean, Violet’s gonna spill my coffee. And my head hurts. I need to lie down again.”

I set him back down on the pillows and stroke his forehead to soothe the pain of his wound. I take his coffee mug from Violet and set it in his little hands. Violet glances at me. I meet her eyes. She looks down at her legs.

“Do you think it would be all right if your mother gets married?” I say to AJ.

Violet’s head jerks up like a fish that’s just been hooked.

“That way you’d think of Violet as family,” I say. “You wouldn’t have to think of yourself as better or worse than someone who’s part of your family.”

“You mean like parents,” says AJ. “Then I can just be mad at her when she tells me to do something and I don’t wanna do it.”

“Yeah,” I say, “something like that.”

“And both of you would help me forget the trauma from my mom and dad since there’s two of them. That makes sense. But what if I don’t see Violet’s face in my dreams like I see yours?”

“You probably don’t want to,” says Violet. “I don’t think I would help you forget your trauma. I wouldn’t even know how.”

“You don’t have to,” I say. “Nobody knows how to do that. You just have to be there when we need you.”

I take her hand and set it on top of AJ’s. He stares at her. She keeps looking away from him.

“I…I don’t know,” she says.

“You’ll get used to it,” I say.

I set my hand on her back and pull her toward me. She still smells like shit but I’ve never wanted to kiss her more. AJ sets his coffee cup in Violet’s lap again. She grabs it with both hands so it doesn’t spill.

“Ruby said I shouldn’t sleep for more than three hours,” AJ says. He puts his arm over his eyes. “So wake me up when you’re done kissing. Even if you’re married, I still don’t wanna see it if I don’t have to.”

“Good night,” I say.

I set his coffee on the dresser and walk with Violet past our softly burning campfire to where the door is still half-open. I stand there with her in my arms while we bathe ourselves in the shafts of glowing moonlight streaming in through the boarded up window above the dresser.

“So, what we are doing?” she says.

“This is our wedding dance,” I say. “Marriage is supposed to be romantic. At least, from what I remember.”

“I don’t know shit about that,” says Violet.

“We’ll just make it up as we go, then.”

“Does that work?”

“It’s worked for me and AJ this far. It’ll work for you, too.” I kiss her. “We’ll make it work.”

We dance with each other while the moon rises high up in the sky and AJ sleeps soundly in his bed. I’m not in any rush to join him in dreaming—I know what’s waiting for me when I finally fall asleep. Lee will be there in a train’s open boxcar, wondering what I’m doing with my life. Kenny will be watching over us from the top of a snowy hill, waving goodbye for the last time like he does every night. And you, my baby boy, you’ll be lying there in the snow, swaddled up in your bedding and blankets, waiting for me to take you up in my arms after I’ve laid to rest so many men who were once fathers to their sons so that I could keep you safe. I’ll hold you close to me like I do Violet and walk with you through bitter winds and a sea of sweeping snow until we reach a place where we can dream, for a while, that we’ve never forgotten what it’s like to live in peace and love and happiness in a place called home.


End file.
